


My Days Among The Dead Are Past

by crocs



Category: Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Comics/Movie Crossover, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Infinity Gems, Multi, Post-Avengers: Infinity War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocs/pseuds/crocs
Summary: As it turns out, being dead is kind of like taking a vacation in a small mountain town — in the afterlife. Of course, that small fact doesn't stop Peter Parker from trying to get back to New York. Even if he probably definitely deserves a holiday by now.Or, in which recreational hiking saves, like, half the world. (COMPLETE.)





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything.

The first thing that Peter became aware of after the Snap was a weight pinning him to something soft. Normally, he didn't actually like anything that made it so he couldn't sit up, but Peter found himself feeling so bone tired that he couldn't freak out about it at all. Everything felt muted around him — he could vaguely hear a clock chiming in the distance, but it rang dull around the room instead of giving him a splitting headache.

Sleepily, he opened his eyes. He had just about enough energy to move his head left and right on what he realised was a cushion on a mattress. He was laying in a bed with way too many pillows on it in a yellow room. The walls were yellow, the duvet cover was yellow, even the sky outside of the large window opposite the bed was yellow. Well, it was amber, but — it fit.

It fit too well.

A sharp creaking noise echoed around the silent room and Peter turned his head towards the door. A built guy carrying a tray of — was that tea? — came through it, and he smiled at Peter.

"Hey, bud," the guy said. He set the tray down on the side table. "You scared us for a minute there."

Peter curled his fingers into the mattress, below the duvet.

"Dude," he said, or rather, slurred, "what's going on? Who are you?"

The guy sat on the side of the bed. He looked like he was trying not to smile.

"The name's Sam Wilson, the Falcon," he said, "but as for your other question… it's kind of complicated. We'll talk about it when you're better recovered."

Then Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Now, are you strong enough to lift this tea, or do you need help?"

"I'm strong enough, man. Healing factor," Peter scoffed, quickly getting into a sitting position and immediately groaning. "Ugh, everything hurts. Hey, weren't you with Captain America at the airport?"

Sam huffed a laugh as he watched Peter reach over for the cup of tea.

Wincing at how hot it was, Peter gulped down the cup and set it back down. "Jeez, man," he commented. "What was in that?"

"The fires of Hell," Sam deadpanned.

Suddenly, Peter felt a wave of tiredness wash over him. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he gave one last look at Sam.

"If you draw on my face while I sleep, I'll web you to a wall," he threatened, and promptly passed out.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty's awake," a familiar voice remarked as Peter half-stumbled down the stairs of the unfamiliar house. He looked around for the source of the voice and grinned as he saw said person at a kitchen table.

He jogged over. "Dr. Strange! Hey, dude!"

Strange looked _normal_. Peter had thought he just owned wizard-y cloaks and clothes and stuff like that when he'd first met him because, well, if he was a wizard, he'd wear that all the time. Instead, Strange looked like he shopped exclusively at Old Navy. Was there a wizard Target? Peter wanted to know. More than that, though, Peter wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Spider-Man," Dr. Strange set his glass of orange juice down on the table. "It's good to see you about."

Peter laughed awkwardly, leaning on the wall. "You're acting like I’ve died, man. Lighten up."

The doctor pulled a face and looked to Sam's turned back for support, then to the other guy sat opposite him (long haired, sweater wearing, kinda rugged in a Jesus way) in desperation, then back at Peter. "There's no easy way to say this."

"You're killing him," Sam pointed out. "Just tell him."

Dr. Strange groaned. Peter got the feeling he felt very tired. "Fine. Spider-Man. We're all dead."

There was silence. And then —

"— Oh my god, you guys are hilarious." Peter pointed between himself and the three other men, trying hard not to burst out in cackles and settling for giggling instead. "Pranksters. I didn't even know you had a sense of humour, Dr. Strange."

Then he realised none of them were laughing. Sam turned around from his plate of breakfast food and opened his mouth, but the long-haired dude cut in first before he could talk.

"Kid, he's not joking. We failed." The guy looked at him straight in the eyes. "Thanos won."

A moment passed, and Peter tried to breathe normally as he processed that information. Unhelpfully, though, his lungs disobeyed him and started working a mile a minute. He wheezed hard as he thought about it. He'd left May, he'd left Ned, MJ, Mr. Stark — everyone. He was dead, he was in limbo, and what had he to show for it?

Numbly, he heard the three men worrying above his head, but he tried to ignore them. He felt a calloused hand help him sit down on the floor and put his head between his knees. Quietly, slowly, Peter regained his normal breathing and looked at the three men hovering over him.

"I'm dead? We're all…" Peter shook his head, looking for the right word. "… _Gone_?"

"I'm afraid so, Spider-Man. Half the universe."

"Well," he quipped weakly, wishing he had his mask to put on and hide his face, "if we're all dead, you guys should call me Peter."

Sam gave him a slightly watery smile. "Nice to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the poem of the same name by Robert Southey. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading!


	2. In Which Peter Goes Hiking

"How do you feel about hiking?"

"Kind of a non-sequitur, but I’ll bite." Peter turned around from the old television he was trying to recalibrate. There was trouble with the signal; no matter how he attempted to tune it, there was none. He really needed to watch the new episode of Dog Cops. "New York’s not really prime place for a hike, but I’ve always been interested. Why?"

Bucky (as he'd introduced himself during the kitchen… episode) sat down on the couch. He looked slightly out of place on the flower-print fabric, and Peter stifled a laugh.

"Sam won't go, and I don't really know anyone else who would want to." Bucky kicked his feet up onto the coffee table. "Plus, you haven't really seen the sights yet. Or gone out. At all."

"I'm busy," Peter protested. He pointed to the TV for emphasis.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "No, you're _making_ yourself busy. There's a difference." He stood up. "Come on. It'll be good for you. Fresh air."

"Dead people don't need fresh air," Peter grumbled, but went and got out some hiking boots from the shoe rack anyway.

They ventured out of the house's back gate and made their way up the stone steps of the valley hill. It was still sunset out, but Peter had come to expect that during his first few days there.

("Time's weird as shit here," Sam had told him when he had asked.)

The incline became sharper as they trekked further. At multiple points, Peter thought about gripping the side of the hill with his hands for added traction, but since Bucky was managing without a spidery ability, he could too. He thought. Probably.

Bucky had opted for a scrunchie to tie up his hair with.

Peter settled with blowing the hair out of his eyes whenever it got in the way.

The trek evened out after long. Peter stood next to Bucky as the man retied his shoelaces on a flat plain and waited.

"So what are we supposed to be looking at?" He questioned, as Bucky stood back up. "Like, what was the point?"

"It's about the journey, not the destination, Peter."

"Mother Hubbard. I'm going back to Sam's. If there was no actual point, then I'm gonna go get lunch. I'm hungry as hell. Oh — whoa." Peter dropped his walking stick as he saw what was behind him.

The view was immense. Two steep, v-shaped mountain sides dropped down into a large valley below them. A large body of water coursed between them and Peter could even see the mouth of said river open out into the sea.

On either side of the river, multiple cottages were arranged in an abstract way; he couldn’t tell whether there were more than a billion or only a few — every time he thought about how many houses there were, it felt like his eyes were crossing.

And on the lake, a few boats (both canal boats and fishing) traveled the river up and down. There was lots of open space, though — green grass stretched up the hills and around the small (large?) town below. There were no skyscrapers, no buildings to swing from and _keep_ swinging from. If he squinted, he could see people milling around, talking to each other. Peter looked at Bucky, then back to the valley, then back at Bucky.

"Are we in Midsomer Murders?"

"We're already dead, so if we are, it's pretty safe." Bucky shrugged. "Nice, though."

"Nice?" Peter whistled. "Dude, it's freaking beautiful."

"I've seen prettier." Bucky checked his watch. "Right, time to head back."

"Why — How do you even know what time it is?"

"The sun still moves across the sky, even if the colour doesn't change." Bucky looked at him. "I thought you asked Sam about it."

Whistling, he began to walk back down the hill. Peter stared dumbly after him, before sprinting to catch up.

"Aren't you forgetting something, kid?" Bucky called over to him. He hoisted his walking stick upwards, not looking back, before walking away.

Peter grumbled softly under his breath and webbed his stick back into his hands before he followed him.

 

* * *

 

_How can you get zits when you're dead?_

Peter thought this exact thought to himself as his reflection poked his face in the mirror. _Darn._ He stared balefully at himself before turning on his heel and heading downstairs. Maybe Sam wouldn't notice.

"Hey, is that a zit? Do you want to borrow some concealer?"

Oh, for goodness' sake. "No, Sam, I don't want to borrow — _OhmygoshBettyRossisatthekitchentablewhattheheck."_

Betty Ross _(Betty Ross)_ laughed. "You appear to have me at a disadvantage."

"This is Peter," Bucky said from the sitting room.

"Peter Parker, um, Ma'am. Your work at Culver University is unparalleled," Peter gushed.

"Please, call me Betty," she replied. "And it's nice to hear that. Mostly, I get the other remark."

"What remark?"

"You know…" Betty blushed. "Gotta be a weird woman to want to go out with the Hu —"

"— And this is the part where I cup Peter's ears," Sam interrupted. Peter laughed awkwardly.

"Hah, funny. So why, um, why are you here? Not that I’m complaining."

"I just had to see the latest scientific mind that the Avengers had to offer," she replied. "I'm curious — did you really create your web shooters all by yourself?"

"Oh, yeah, are you kidding me? Those things? All mine. I can show you if you want."

"Ah bah bah. _Not_ in the kitchen."

Peter picked at his nails as he talked about the web shooters to Betty. It was a nervous habit, but she was kind enough to overlook it. Betty even chipped in a few questions and suggestions of her own, which really sent him onto a tangent — and before he knew it, she was scribbling down contact information and pushing it at him.

"I've put down a few more numbers here," she explained, "just in case you'd like to talk. I know Janey's been _dying_ to ask you about space."

"Ask me?" Peter did a double take as he saw exactly who 'Janey' was on the piece of paper. "Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining, _Jane Foster wants to talk to me."_

Betty hummed. "Well, knowing her, it'll be more like an interrogation. Thank god that Darcy chick's here too or she'd never stop to breathe."

Peter nodded, even though he had no idea who this Darcy person was.

Reaching for her bag that she'd put under the table, Betty got off her stool and shook Peter's hand. "Nice meeting you, Peter. I know… all this is confusing, right now, but I’m glad to see the future is in good hands." She smiled at Sam, who stood up and gave her a bro-hug, and then accepted a Tupperware box of baked goods from him. "Bye, Sam."

"Don't be a stranger, Betty."

Then she left, footsteps muffled by the door. Peter counted to ten before letting out a tiny squeal and pushing himself off the stool. Sam gave him an amused look, before turning back to his laptop. Peter skipped all the way upstairs.

It was a respectful skip, though.

Totally.


	3. In Which New Friends Are Made

Even though Peter had gone to multiple farmer's markets before, they didn't really compare to the ones in the Afterlife.

Armed with a shopping list ('Plums', written large in all caps and underlined multiple times, above a couple of other items) and a couple of things to trade himself, Peter made his way out of the cottage into one of the town squares.

Bucky had all but pushed him out that morning, citing 'fresh air' and 'over-hyperactivity ruining this book written in the seventeenth century in pure Russian, I’m trying to read, kid, burn it off'. Peter didn’t take that much convincing.

He really did want to see the town — to just see how it functioned, how it looked, what places he could swing from if he got in a patch.

He also wanted to hear what really happened before he woke up. Sam and Bucky had kept mum on the subject, but Peter knew he'd been one of the last ones to end up here. It itched at his skin that he didn't know.

Whistling, Peter smiled at a couple of people he didn't recognise, and gave a loud greeting to those that he did. Principal Morita was here too, apparently, along with Mr. Delmar from the bodega and his daughter, who he winked at (and Mr. Delmar tutted at him for doing so).

Weirdly, though, he hadn't seen any of the students from Midtown Sci yet, but he was holding out hope.

He couldn't have been the only one. It wasn't statistically possible.

Peter approached a fruit stall and eyed a punnet of plums warily. He considered what he had to trade — Sam’s cookies always went far after a taste test. There was no proper currency here yet, but he was fine with that. Waving at the seller, Peter started to list his order off but trailed off when he looked at him oddly.

Someone coughed behind him. "Hey, dude, not all three-point-five billion people here speak English."

Peter turned around.

A girl around his age gave him a polite, albeit sort-of-' _you-dumbo'_ -ish smile and started to order for him. Peter watched as she tucked a wayward strand of pink-tipped blonde hair into her black headband and leant forward, evidently bartering for him. She snatched the Tupperware box of cookies and gave five to the vendor, who nodded at her and put _two_ punnets into a paper bag.

"Thanks, dude," Peter said, truly grateful, "I don't know what I would have done."

"No problem, man." The girl handed the bag over to him. "My dad's part Latverian, so I speak another language at home. Well. I spoke another language at home."

"You don't live with your parents here?"

"I couldn’t find them after we all woke up. I don't even know if we're all here." The girl stuck out a hand, her arm lined with festival wristbands. "Gwen Stacy. Midtown High."

He shook it. "Peter Parker, Midtown SciTech."

"Wait, we're from the same…"

"…Area? Yeah. Kinda weird." _Really weird._

"You're telling me," Gwen remarked, suddenly giving him an intense look. "Hey, have you ever been to a Mary Janes concert?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah, wh — _oh my God you're the main drummer and I just recognised you and I’m really stupid_. My friend MJ really loves you guys," he offered as consolation. He wanted a sinkhole to erupt underneath him.

"Would MJ be a Michelle Jones?"

Peter nodded tersely.

"We've met at a couple rallies," Gwen laughed. "Small world."

"You're telling me," Peter mimicked her, and Gwen laughed harder.

 

* * *

 

"Thanks for dropping me off," Peter said to Bucky. He readjusted his tie.

"I have no idea why you insisted on wearing that," the super soldier replied, "but honestly, no problem, kid. I wanted to meet up with that Keener kid anyway. See how he was getting on with my arm."

Bucky's arm had apparently gotten damaged in the Snap. He'd fallen on it and accidentally half-removed it when he finally turned into dust. Only half went to the afterlife with him; Peter assumed that the other part was still in Wakanda.

(He was also immensely jealous that Bucky got to go there in the first place. In freshman year, he'd even added Princess Shuri's twitter account into their Decathlon group chat just in case she had had any advice for them.)

Jane Foster's office was a modern building outside of the main town. It was a bit off of the beaten path, but Peter was enjoying his and Bucky's hikes through the valleys. It allowed him to think aloud, and the guy never complained about him talking too much or making pop culture references he didn't understand. The building was one storey high, and resembled an old garage more than anything.

Peter pushed his way through the wooden door with his side and hopped up to the front desk. A woman with large black glasses on was staring intently at her phone as he waited for her to look up. She tapped at it twice before giving Peter the time of day.

"Hey, man."

"Hey. I'm… here to see Jane Foster?"

The woman's eyebrows shot up. "So you're the wunderkind that Jane's been talking about," she hummed, sticking out a hand. "Darcy Lewis-Boothby."

"Peter Parker. Wait, aren't you…"

"…The college student that tased Thor?" Darcy grinned. "Glad my reputation's held up. One good thing about the S.H.I.E.L.D. leaks was the free coffee from impressed Starbucks waiters." She extended a fingerless-gloved hand. "Come on, I’ll walk you through."

Bucky and Peter were then led through a set of double doors. Inside, a large laboratory was set up. Natural, amber light filtered through big windows and shone on multiple wooden laboratory tables, all of which had various scientific equipment set up. The walls were lined with shelves full of glass instruments and swing-out whiteboards.

Brass pendant lamps hung from the ceiling beams and the lightbulbs were sharply reflected on the polished wood flooring. A small section of the wall was given entirely to a set of dedicated computer servers, all connected to an array of desktops scattered haphazardly around the room.

Peter was in love.

"Can I live here?" he asked Darcy.

Darcy snorted, and replied, "If you survive Jane, you are _more_ than welcome to."

As if on cue, a large crash sounded from in front of them. Peter startled and launched himself upside down, clinging to one of the beams. A woman with her hair tied up in a relaxed pony tail popped up from behind a bench.

"Uh, why is there a child on my ceiling?"

"I'm 17," said Peter.

"Jane, this is Peter Parker." Jane looked at Darcy with no recollection. "The Spider-Man? The one that went to space?"

Jane's brown eyes widened. "Oh, yes! Yeah, hi!"

She ran towards Peter, who unlatched himself from the ceiling carefully.

"Jane Foster," she greeted. "Astrophysicist by day… astrophysicist by night. I don't really have a life other than that."

"It's true," Darcy added.

Jane fake-glared at her. " _Anyway_. Peter, I am so glad you're here. I've been going nuts trying to calculate this data." She laughed. "Thank you so much for coming."

"I — It's a pleasure, really. You're kinda like a massive hero to me."

"Really?" Jane smiled. "Cool. Alright, let's do this."

She guided Peter into a chair. "Mind if I record this?" Jane flipped open a notebook and looked at him expectantly.

"No, go ahead."

"Thanks. First question — how did gravity feel? Was it… heavy? Could you jump around more easily?"

"I think there was a lower gravitational pull, but not by that much, you know? Not by, like, the Moon standards. Not that I've ever actually been to the Moon."

Jane scribbled down something, then moved on to the next question.


	4. In Which Realisations Occur

"So you live on a houseboat?"

Gwen grimaced, opening the door of the boat so they could get inside. " _Narrowboat,_ yeah." She closed the door behind him.

Peter raised his eyebrows at the low ceiling, and looked around.

He certainly understood the classification. If he went into a T-pose, he would probably be able to touch both side walls. The back wall was a long way away, and it was closed-plan — Peter couldn’t see a bedroom or a bathroom, so he figured it was much longer.

A leather couch was pushed up the side of a wall, cushions laid haphazardly against it. A digital drum kit was next to it, and a long table was a couple of feet away. A lot of paintings were hung on the walls, and Peter privately thought that she must have used blu-tack to keep them from falling off when the boat was travelling. The walls were painted roughly, a bright teal splashed against white. There were a couple of rugs on the floor, but nothing else that made it that homely.

"I know it's messy," Gwen said, making her way to the table and setting down her shopping, "but it's Johnny's turn to do the chores, and I ain't doing it this time."

"Johnny?"

"That would be me," said a familiar voice. "Johnny Storm — Hell, Pete?"

Peter ran to meet him and hugged him hard. "Holy sugar, dude. What's up, man?"

"Not too bad, esé. You?" Johnny clapped him on the back.

"Not bad, not bad."

Gwen raised a hand. "Uh. What’s going on?"

Peter grinned. "Johnny and I have known each other since we were, like, eight. We live in the same apartment building."

"Aunt May's cooking… Aunt May…" Johnny trailed off, reminiscing. Peter resisted the urge to elbow him in the gut.

"So you guys live together?"

Gwen nodded. "When we all woke up here, Johnny was the first person that I talked to that actually spoke English. We decided to stick together, y'know?"

"The world really is small."

"Well, it is now, considering half the world's dead," Johnny joked. "Housing market must have gone right down. Wish I was alive to take advantage of it."

"That's what I wanted to talk about, Peter," Gwen explained. She gestured to a chair and Peter sat down in it, curious.

She sighed, looking tired. Gwen balled her fists into her sweater and stared at him, completely serious. Johnny leant against the wall and bounced his eyebrows when Peter looked at him.

"What's going on, Gwen?"

She shook her head. "I… I don't know how to start."

Johnny scoffed. "Don't look at me, Gwennie. I'm not the one who brought your theory up."

"Look, can someone tell me what the hell's going on?" Peter said, finally at his wit's end. "I wake up and no-one'll tell me how I got here. I'm also dead, now, and a fully fledged adult, and everyone won't answer my questions, and — and — and —"

"Breathe, Pete." Johnny sat down across from him. He flashed his eyebrows at her. "Gwen?"

"Okay. Okay, so." Gwen started pacing. "I don't — I don't think we're really dead."

Peter felt lost for words. "… _What?"_

Gwen began to pace more intensely. "When we got here, I had an asthma attack. I found it hard to breathe, I began wheezing, yada yada yada… Next day, I'm okay, but I’m still feeling it. My lungs still need to breathe here, so my heart still needs to beat. If my heart's beating… I'm not dead. And you aren't. None of us are."

"So you're saying…"

She paused her walk and turned to Peter. "I'm saying that we weren't killed, or culled, or whatever. I'm saying we were displaced."

"Jesus." Peter scratched his head. "That's heavy as hell."

Gwen sat down and looked at him intently. "So what do you think? You think it's credible?"

"I think it's possible," Peter said, cautiously, "but we need more evidence. But, damn, I hope you're right."

Because if she was — if they were alive — then he could go home.

He could see his family again.

Slowly, Peter crossed his fingers under the table.

 

* * *

 

 _"What?"_ said Sam.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" said Sam.

"Holy _motherfucking_ _shit_ , Peter!" said Sam. "How long have you been _sitting_ on this?"

"Only a couple hours!"

Bucky nodded, placing a hand on Sam's shoulder to calm him down. "What exactly are you basing this theory on, kid?"

"The fact that it makes sense," Peter replied. "I told you Gwen's story, right? And — I can feel my pulse. I can. Why would I be able to do that if I were dead?"

"He's got a point." Bucky looked at Sam.

Sam shook his head, shrugging off Bucky's hand. "I can't comprehend this. I felt myself die. I did. If I’m not —"

"If you're not, then we can still stop Thanos," summarised Peter. "We can go back."

"How would we even _test_ it?" Sam countered. "How would we leave this place?"

"I don't know," Peter admitted. "We could ask Betty or Dr. Foster to help, I guess. Or Strange." He shrugged. "I don't think there's a precedent for being half-wiped out and then realising you really weren't."

"This is just a theory," Bucky reminded them, then furrowed his eyebrows. "Hey, I just thought of something." He turned to Sam. "Do you remember that little funky tree kid that got turned to dust too?"

"Vaguely," said Sam. "Where is this going?"

"Where is he? He was taken too, so where is he? Wouldn't we have heard about him running around?"

"He was an alien. Maybe he went to alien heaven." Sam groaned, crashing next to Peter on the couch. When they had all gathered in the sitting room, it had been under the lie that Peter had finally managed to fix the TV. In reality, he was still working on it, but they didn't need to know that.

Peter sat up straight on the floral print, curling his toes into one of the rugs Bucky had managed to barter a lower price for at the market. The amber sun was flooding in through the bay window behind them, creating soft shadows and bright patches across the room. There was no need for the small paper lampshade above them, because of the twenty-four hour light show outside, but Peter thought that if he turned it on it would give the same effect.

A clock hung lopsidedly on one of the walls, the second hand clicking away as they sat in silence. With every passing moment, it thudded and shuddered into the next slot, sounding like more and more like thunder cracking each time it did. He looked away from it, trying to distract himself. He swallowed hard.

"Sam, I think Bucky might have a point," Peter argued. "There were some guys around me that I haven't seen here either. They called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. Anyway, not all of them were aliens. This one dude, Peter Quill — he was from Earth. Missouri, actually. And he's — he's not here either."

"I think I see what you're saying," Sam admitted. He rolled his shoulders. "Why create a bunch of afterlives when you can just create one, unless this isn't it?"

"Maybe it's based on species," said Bucky. "Kid, maybe that Quill guy isn’t fully human."

"So he's just on his own? That would be awful," Peter said. "I'm not fully human anymore, and I’m still with you guys. None of this — _none of this —_ makes sense. If this is the afterlife, there would be room for all of us because… well, because we wouldn't need that much room. If we weren't dead, we would. Plain and simple."

Bucky shrugged. "So what do we do? If this is all fake, what _can_ we do?"

"We fight," said someone. "We can't just sit and take it."

It was only after Peter looked up at Sam and Bucky nodding along that he realised it was himself that had spoken.

"Call Strange, and your friends too, Peter," Sam decided. "I'll phone Betty. We'll all meet at Jane's lab. You're right. We need to get to the bottom of this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	5. In Which A Team (Family) Meeting Is Held

"Pete," said Johnny, elbowing him, "that's the Falcon."

"Yeah."

Johnny squinted at Peter. "Have you explained to us how you know the Avengers yet, or was I just not listening? 'Cause sometimes I zone out."

"No," said Gwen, clutching her backpack closer to her chest, "he hasn’t."

"Okay. Just wanted to know."

Peter put his hands up in an _'I-surrender-please-don't-roast-me'_ fashion. "I promise I'll explain everything to you guys soon, but please, for now, shut up."

They'd all crowded into Jane's lab, sitting around a large fold-up table in the middle. Gwen and Johnny were some of the last few to arrive, citing 'boat trouble'. Now, they were missing all but one person — Doctor Strange. Peter didn't think anything of this, though — he got the feeling Strange liked to be fashionably late.

Peter had busied himself by helping Harley Keener reattach Bucky's new arm. Apparently, it was a two man job, and although Bucky could help, he chose not to, deciding to trade hiking tips with Darcy instead. 

Darcy, to her credit, wasn't distracted by the sleek, part-vibranium part-scrap metal arm that was currently being attached to the other side of his torso, and chipped in her own stories about her geocaching hobby while she had lived in New Mexico. Unfortunately, though, the job didn't take long, and he soon found himself at the mercy of Johnny and Gwen.

Sometimes, he really missed how easygoing Ned was about the whole Avengers business. Luckily, if all went well, Peter thought, he wouldn’t have to miss him for much longer.

Gwen frowned. "Seriously, man," she said, "you talked a big talk about people not being transparent the other day and now you're being vague as all hell. Enlighten us. Please."

Peter tilted his head and thought about the logical way to attack the situation. Head-first it was. "I'm Spi —"

All of a sudden, a loud whooshing noise started up from behind them. Peter craned his neck around to see a circle of sparks growing in front of one of the servers, causing the lights on it to flicker and whither away. When the circle began to grow, the noise got louder and louder, coming to the point where Peter had to cup his hands over his ears to not get deafened. As he did so, he realised that no-one else was following him, and slowly realised that his spider-senses must have been acting up.

Which was incredibly weird, because for the entire time he had been dead so far they hadn’t affected him at all. In fact, it was one of the main reasons he had thought he was definitely dead; if you're not living, why would you have to be warned about danger?

A boot stepped out of the portal. It was very shortly followed by the rest of Dr. Strange, who emerged from it wiping sweat from his brow. He gave a wave to the group, and out of the corner of his eyes, Peter saw Jane give a tiny, unsure wave back. Striding over, Dr. Strange huffed and sat down.

He was no longer wearing a Sears-chic outfit; no, now Strange was dressed in full wizard clothing. The clothes looked a lot like the ones that he had worn when Thanos had ruined everything, except it had a lot less life to it — especially the cloak. Peter got the feeling that he must have disenchanted it or something.

Or maybe the cloak survived the Snap and he had to conjure one. 

Whatever.

Gwen spoke up. "Are we just gonna pretend that Harry Potter over there didn't just come through a portal?" She looked around. "No? Okay."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Strange said, rudely, "who are you again?"

"Oh, I'm the bitch that figured this all out, asshole," Gwen replied, crossing her arms and leaning back. "What have you done?"

"Okay, okay." Peter spread his arms out, trying to keep the peace. "Love, peace, tranquility and all that good stuff, okay? Dr. Strange, thanks for showing up, Gwen, thanks for reminding me to ask why he's late."

"Portal travel strains me here," Strange answered. "In fact, all magic is tiring right now. Which is worrying, as I'm the Sorcerer Supreme — or, rather, _was_ the Sorcerer Supreme."

Peter nodded. "I've noticed the same thing with my powers. All dulled. All that's left is my web-shooters and they're not part of my powers organically."

Johnny gripped his arm and Peter looked at his stricken face. "You're — you're Spider-Man."

Peter grimaced. "Uh. Yeah."

Johnny paused, then started laughing hysterically. " _Oh, my god!_ _That's_ why you're always sneaking out at night! I thought you were in a gang, Pete!"

"You… thought _what?"_

"Gwennie, Gwennie…" Johnny grabbed Gwen's arm with his free hand for support and shook it gently, wheezing. "Pe — oh, fuck, Gwen, Peter's _Spider-Man_!"

Gwen carefully pried his fingers off of her arm. "Yeah, I got that," she said. Gwen leant forward so Peter could see her face. "Thanks for protecting Queens for so long, Peter. Good — good job, man."

"Yeah, thanks," said Peter, trying to do the same and failing. "Dude, get off me."

Sam coughed loudly, and Johnny's laughter quietened. "Betty," he said, long-sufferingly, "how do you think we should attack this?"

Betty shook her head. "That's just it, Sam — I've no idea. When the Chitauri invaded, at least we knew who we were fighting. Now…" she trailed off.

"…Now we have no idea what we're fighting, and how to go about it," Jane completed, nodding at Betty. "Could be a rogue Asgardian in cahoots with Thanos, could be someone just trying to protect half the universe from dying. We don't know."

Dr. Strange frowned. "I could do some digging, see what comes up when I reach out into the universe." 

"That sounds logical," said Jane. "I'll try and calibrate my equipment for something weird. There's no book here, people."

"Self-resurrection is serious business," commented Bucky.

Peter snorted softly through his nostrils. "Says the only person here that's managed to do it before."

"Ah," Bucky pointed out, "but I wasn't actually dead all that time."

"And the whole point of _this_ is that we might not be." Gwen shrugged. "Just saying."

"Alright, team," Betty said, clasping her hands together. "We'll meet back —"

Peter's focus began to wander as he sensed a small vibration rattle through the table they were sitting at.

"Uh, guys?" He interrupted. Peter looked up and saw the brass lamps overhead start to shake and bang together. "I think something's wrong…"

Chemicals in glass containers began to crash together and fall over, making cracking and steaming noises. Peter ducked under the table and held the legs as he heard sirens blare around him, the others following suit. He could hear servers topple to the ground and tried to keep his breathing steady as the tremors shook the building.

Still squatting, Peter turned around, swapping the arms that were holding the legs of the table and undid one of his web shooters with his teeth, firing some out with it in his mouth to secure some expensive looking equipment from breaking. 

Just as quickly as it started, though, the tremors stopped.

Sam coughed. "Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Darcy answered, "even though I think the building might not be."

One by one, they all crawled out from under the fold-up table and surveyed the damage. Peter hissed as he saw the wreck that was the reception area through the double doors. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jane rush to one of the computers, kicking the server until it started up.

Gwen groaned. "God, what _was_ that?"

"Earthquake," said Jane. "Localised. Which is _very_ weird."

Bucky looked at her. "How so?"

"Well, previously, we were operating under the hypothesis that this is a metaphysical plane that we're all inhabiting in the afterlife." Jane slicked her hair into a tight ponytail as she tapped at a few keys. "No, I'm no seismologist, but earthquakes usually occur at friction between the faults in the Earth, right? So for them to happen here, where there's no plates to speak of…"

Johnny frowned and crossed his arms. "Shouldn't be possible."

Jane nodded at him. "Now, when Darcy and I first got here, we decided to take a drone out for reconnaissance."

"Nice," said Bucky.

"Not for spying," Sam reminded him.

Bucky made a disappointed face. "Oh."

"That's how they met me, by the way," Harley mentioned, quiet until then. He shrugged as everyone looked at him. "I had a few parts laying about, enough to make a drone. Found out about Jane's lab and joined the team."

"What we got from that journey were some pretty interesting visual glitches," said Jane. "And a working map of the afterlife. Now, if I plug in the data from that quake…"

"…You'll be able to see where it started." Peter crossed his arms, walking over to see what Jane was working on. "Dude, that's so cool."

"Thanks." Jane fished out a small remote and clicked a button on it, turning on a projector. Peter spun on his heels as a hazy image formed on the wall — a blurry red dot pulsing on a green field. As it focused, he realised it wasn't just any hill.

"Bucky, that's the place we hiked to the other day."

The super soldier squinted. "You sure?"

"Almost positive," he responded. "Look, there's the valley, and the houses beneath it." He looked at the group. "Coincidence?"

"No such things as coincidences," Bucky said. He smiled slyly. "You still got those hiking boots, kid?"

Peter gulped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the ball gets rolling… Thank you for reading!


	6. In Which Peter Goes Hiking (Again)

Seeing as though he'd already been up there once, Peter would have thought that the second time going up the valley would be much shorter. 

What he didn't factor in was the eight or so other people trekking up with him. 

Darcy had stayed behind at the lab; she'd cited a need to go over and check the status of all the lab equipment to see what would need fixing and what wouldn't. She'd also attempted to chew Peter out over the mess of webs now covering most surfaces, but he'd luckily been dragged away by Gwen and Johnny before he seriously started to think about a will. Darcy was _scary_.

As they were climbing, he'd started to be subjected to Johnny's grilling about Spider-Man and Gwen's silent judgement. He got the feeling she wasn't on either of their sides — he'd spotted her rolling her eyes a couple times when they'd got onto a different spider-themed subject earlier.

" _Por Dios_ , Pete," Johnny groaned, "what do you mean you went to an arms dealer's house?"

"Well," said Peter, grunting as he stabbed his walking stick into the ground, "I was taking his daughter to Homecoming, so… kinda had to pick her up."

"Your life sounds _awful_."

"It could be worse," chipped in Gwen. "You could be scaling a hill to find out if you're dead or not. Oh, wait."

Peter sighed. 

"Ha, ha, very funny," he said without a trace of humour in his voice. 

"Almost there, everyone," he heard Jane say from above them. 

Almost there was an understatement. Within a few moments, Peter found himself being hauled up by a metal arm and a human one, and smiled his thanks to Sam and Bucky as he gained his footing.

"So, what are we looking for here?" He said to Betty, brushing off his trousers.

Betty looked up from the notebook she was scribbling in. "Massive crack, bunch of rubble…" she clicked her pen shut for emphasis. "…You get the idea."

"Cool, cool, nice, cool." Peter rocked on his heels. "So, should I — _holy sugar —"_

Beneath their feet, the ground began to shudder and crack open, a white light bursting through the split. Using his amazing split-second reflexes, Peter hesitated for a moment before following Betty's lead and diving to the side. The dirt crumbled and hit a floor beneath where it had lay, forming a perfectly rectangular hole. Peter got up from the floor and peered over.

The dirt had fallen onto a set of stone stairs that led from the surface to a small landing. A large set of fortified wooden doors led to _somewhere_ in front of the stairs. Peter watched, transfixed, as a line of unlit wooden torches burst into flames, lighting the way down.

 _"Cool,"_ said Johnny, and picked up a torch, starting to head down. "Last one through the doors is a coward!"

Gwen grabbed him by his collar. "Yeah, no," she said. "Am I the only one that has a bad feeling about this? You guys have all watched Scooby Doo, right? Plus, Johnny, if you run down there with that — that _thing_ , you'll light yourself on fire. You'll be a human torch."

"That doesn't sound too bad," said Dr. Strange. "It _would_ shut all of you up."

"Okay, I'm allowed to threaten him with combustion because I’m his friend, jackass." Gwen crossed her arms. "Where's _your_ excuse?"

Harley cut off Strange's cutting retort with a sigh. "Look, everyone, this is probably our only chance to find out what the hell is going on. So, Johnny, please lead the way."

Johnny made a considering facial expression. He headed down the stairs first anyway, with everyone hot on his heels.

With each and every step, Peter could feel his spider-senses begin to return in full force. He felt the molecules of dirt and mud gripping to his skin like a second one; he could smell more of the wild garlic and lavender that had laced the valley since his arrival; he could even hear the gentle whooshing of the river running through the town, now a million miles away in his mind.

Before long, they reached the doorway. Sam plucked a bobby pin from Jane's hair and began to work on the lock.

"Steve taught me this," he said by way of explanation as he worked. "Guy's got no clue about Star Wars, but he sure can break into anywhere."

Captain America knew nothing about the best movie franchise of all time? Peter shook off the shock. Dude was probably busy being Captain America. 

As soon as they potentially got back and he got over all of his starstruck-ness, Peter decided that they were very overdue for a movie night.

"Need some light?" said Johnny. His torch wavered and flickered slightly.

Sam grinned. "Nah, I've just about got this." The doors swung backwards, banging against the stone walls inside. "Jackpot. Thank you, Steve."

Peter peered through the doorway. Another set of stairs — spiral, this time — curled around a stone wall and disappeared to goodness knows where. More torches lined the small walkway, but they stayed unlit. There were dead autumn leaves lining the sides of the floor, which was odd as outside the weather was summery. Once he had conquered his jelly legs, Peter was the first one through, placing his hand on the old stone as he made his way down the stairwell.

As they continued further down, he found himself relying on Johnny's torch more and more. Peter bit his cheek, trying not to stumble down the steep steps. After a while, the group reached the bottom of the spiral and stepped out onto a large, stone deck.

The deck seemed to be built on the side of the cliff; a round, glass balcony stretched across the edge of the stone and looked out over the lake mouth and onto the ocean, which stretched on as far as the eye could see. Peter shared a brief look of confusion with Gwen before staring up at the industrial-looking metal support beams that seemed to hold the deck to the cliffside.

All of a sudden, streams of grey fog began to crawl through the gaps in the glass fencing. Hitching up the neck of his t-shirt to cover his mouth, Peter looked on as the fog crashed together in the middle of the deck and built up. A human hand, covered by a fitted white glove, reached out of the grey.

As if a strong breeze began to blow, the fog drew back, revealing a hooded figure standing in the middle of the deck. The figure let their gloved hand drop, it disappearing back under the dark purple cloak they were wearing. Slowly, steadily, they reached up and pulled back their hood with both hands, shaking their hair free and revealing their face.

Peter gasped. 

_"Taraji P. Henson?"_

The woman smiled at him kindly, but Peter got the unearthly feeling that she was smiling through him as well. "Though I am told we resemble each other, I am sorry to say I am not her." She made a lowering gesture. "And, please, lower your weapons. They would be able to do no damage, except to my balcony."

Peter heard Harley click the safety back on on his potato gun.

The woman removed her gloves, holding them between her clasped hands. "Thank you, Harley Keener."

"How do you know my name?" Harley asked.

"I know every single person's name," she answered, still smiling. "I have to. For I am Lady Death."


	7. In Which Death Has an Agenda

Sam frowned. "What do you mean, you're Lady Death?" 

Death chuckled. "I am afraid it is a bit of a misnomer, Sam Wilson. I am the Lady of Death, yes, as I am Life and Mortality itself. It is only one facet of my focus, but I will be the first to admit it suits me better than those other aspects ever could."

"My, uh, Lady," Jane said. Death's brown eyes flicked to her, flashing like lava crashing against rocks. Peter wanted to shiver. "We're very sorry for trespassing, but if you will, we'll just… go on our way?"

"Certainly not, Jane Foster," she said. "You lot have been on the verge of figuring this out for a while now. It is only fitting that I explain."

She surveyed them all with that steely gaze, smile dropping. "You are, as Gwen Stacy hypothesised, not dead. That is true. What is also true is that you are no longer on your Earth either. Or any Earth like it."

"Are you saying the Multiverse Theory is true?" Betty interrupted, the fact that they were facing off with literal Death forgotten. Peter looked between the two, anxious. Maybe Death had laser eyes or something.

Death only exhaled softly. "Your Doctor Strange could have told you that. What is it that Kamar-Taj calls your pet universe again? The Reflection Dimension?"

"Mirror Dimension," Dr. Strange corrected. 

Gwen snorted. "That is an _awful_ name," she commented.

 _"Silence,"_ Death commanded, and Peter felt like cornered prey. "You wanted answers. Humans always do. I will only give them once. Interrupt me again and you will get _none_."

She breathed in. "When Thanos the Mad Titan gathered the Infinity Stones, I caught wind of what he was planning just as he snapped his fingers. The hundred or so lives that suffered to warn me were given in vain, but I managed to gather the rest of the souls that were due to be sacrificed for his plan to work and transport them to a different universe milliseconds before they were affected."

Johnny coughed, his torch still lit in his hands. "A different universe?"

"A pocket one, much like Strange's Mirror Dimension. Hundreds upon thousands of them, actually. Souls connected to bodies _do_ take up so much room." She shook her head. "The small village each of you inhabit is one of them. It, like all of the others, is bursting to the limit with ordinary people that did not deserve to die and most certainly will if they return now, under those new laws of physics that Thanos so helpfully concocted."

"Are you saying we can never go back?" Harley piped up. "That we're basically _stuck_ here?"

"On the contrary," replied Death. "Though I _will_ have to give you extra protection to keep you from dying, I do want you to go back. It would be for the greater good."

"How?" asked Bucky, voice raw. "How would sending us back be for the greater good?"

"If you defeat Thanos, all of the souls here will be able to re-inhabit your universe again. And if your universe is repopulated, well, the process you call procreation will occur at an increased rate than at only half the population being there, and the children born from that will continue the process, and so on." Death smiled. "What do all mortals have in common? _Death_."

"Hang on," said Peter, "you want us to defeat Thanos and save everyone so you can invest and rake in more numbers?"

"In a nutshell, yes. A win-win situation, you'll agree. Everyone dies someday," Death said easily. "You cannot expect the embodiment of it to _not_ want to maximise profits."

Gwen stepped forward, then looked at the group at large. "I think we should do it," she decided. "Death has a point. I mean, why shouldn't we help? Don't we want to live back in our own world, just for a little longer? I miss my mom and dad and my siblings like hell. I know Johnny misses his sister and I definitely know Peter misses his aunt and friends."

"Yeah, I agree," Peter said, surprising even himself. He cleared his throat. "And plus, Gwen, you're literally the one that realised it first. You've got your head on straight. I'd agree with you anyway."

"Thanks, Peter."

"No problem."

"Okay," said Sam, arms folded. "We're in. What do you want us to do?"

"There is an alternate Earth, similar to yours," she began. "The only difference is that in this reality, all sentient life was stripped away and thus ceased to exist sometime in the 2010s. We have designated this Earth the name Counter-Earth." 

Death sighed and raised a hand to stop the onslaught of questions. "Yes, I am privy to how it happened, and, no, it is not relevant to your journey. The Infinity Stones still do exist there. I would like you to go to their places of hiding in this reality, retrieve them, and use them to fight Thanos. To fight fire with fire, if you will. Which _does_ remind me…"

Death trailed off, turning to look at Johnny with his torch still lit. 

"Johnny Storm," she said. 

Johnny audibly gulped. 

"You are, along with most of your friends here, a baseline human. Though you are kind-spirited and headstrong, those qualities will make no difference when traversing the way between your home reality and Counter-Earth. Do you wish to change that, or would you rather stay here?"

Peter looked at Johnny as he shuffled between his feet, then looked straight at Death. 

"I kinda have absolutely no idea what you have in mind, but I am _not_ staying here. No chance."

"Very well."

Like sparks on a fire, Johnny's bleached-blonde hair began to crackle and then set alight. The fire crawled down his body, changing from a bright yellow flame on top of his head to red and orange flickers from his skin. His teenage acne burst into sunspots; his pupils disappeared completely, the whites of his eyes becoming white-hot. Tendrils of fire erupted from under his feet and burnt through the stone deck, making a mark as Johnny stumbled in shock.

"Johnny?" Gwen asked, tentatively. "Are you okay?"

He looked at his flaming hands in confusion. 

"…I feel like I could go ten rounds with Ultron before breakfast. " Johnny looked at Death. "Is that _normal?"_

"Normal for you now, yes," Death answered. "With your new superhuman abilities, it made sense to increase your baseline adrenaline. You now have the power of pyrokinesis and increased durability. Though I am sure you could figure that out from your skin not burning away."

Johnny made to elbow Peter, but thought better of it as the other teen flinched. "Hey, Pete. Gwen. Guess you were right about me being a human torch, huh? Maybe _that_ could be my superhero name."

Gwen rolled her eyes.

Death turned to Gwen. "Gwen Stacy," she addressed her.

"Yeah, no. I'm so in. Fire me _up."_

"Not quite," said Death. Her face flickered from her human face to a skull, before changing back just as quick.

Suddenly, a side-splitting headache attacked Peter's brain. He clutched and scratched at his scalp, falling to his knees. The stone deck in front of him blurred as he keeled forward and breathed hard. Just as he were about to shout out, he felt a hand on his shoulder and his headache cleared. He detached his hands from his head and looked up at Gwen.

"Are you okay, Peter? Deep breaths," she instructed. Peter followed her advice then gestured for her to help him up.

Gwen lifted her hand off but the material of Peter's down jacket stuck to it. In panic, she tried shaking it to loosen her grip. Giving up, Gwen looked at Death.

"So you made Johnny literally be able to set himself on fire, but I'm just… sticky?"

"Do not question my gifts, Gwen Stacy. And I am sure Peter Parker will be able to tell you exactly what powers you have."

"You have _mine_ ," Peter realised. Rising, he turned to Death for confirmation. "That headache I just had… that was you copying my powers across, right?"

"Correct, Peter Parker," Death said. "As ever, you are perceptive. Your spider-bite and ensuing super strength will be able to see you well through your journey to defeat Thanos. It only made sense to copy it across."

Harley raised his hand in question. "Uh, do we all get cool superpowers too?"

Death laughed, the noise echoing across the cavern. "Not for James Barnes or Stephen Strange, but yes. All of you that require a significant change to your biology to survive have already received it upon entering this dimension. I have simply unlocked these abilities for your use." She cocked an eyebrow in Gwen and Johnny's direction. "Well, at least the ones that I had expected to go. Gwen Stacy and Johnny Storm were entirely dark horses."

Seemingly having finished her speech, Death put her gloves back on. 

"I wish you all good luck on your journey to find the Stones," she said. "Though I do not think you will need it."

Death clapped her hands together, and all went pitch black.


	8. Unary

Peter woke up to a soft voice calling his name.

He blinked, once, twice, then sat up on the cold floor. "Hello?"

Various blue pieces of text and drawings flitted past his eyes, and Peter reached up to bat them away before he realised he couldn’t touch them. He was wearing gloves — gloves with an incredibly familiar webbed pattern on them.

 _"Good morning, Peter,"_ the voice from before said warmly. " _It is currently 59° Fahrenheit, or 15° Celsius. Would you like me to decrease the thermal insulation in your suit?"_

"Karen? Is that you?"

" _Yes, Peter."_

He was back in his suit.

He was back _in_ his _suit._

Peter felt like jumping for joy. Finally, he was back in his second skin; it was like someone had condensed the feeling of home and wrapped Peter up in it. Making sure everything was still there, he sat for a few moments scrolling through the suit menus.

It was then he made the mistake of focusing on his surroundings.

Scrambling to get a better look through the large window he had woken up next to, Peter gasped as he saw what was outside. He pressed his hands up against the glass and gaped at the spiral-shaped golden buildings that towered over the small room he was in. Looking upward, Peter's eyes widened as he took in the blue-painted ceiling where golden constellations seemed to pulse and shift with every moment.

It was incredibly quiet.

"Karen, where are we?"

If Karen had a face, he was sure she would be frowning. _"I'm… not sure, Peter. This is incredibly rare — I have GPS data for nearly every nook and cranny on Earth."_

"I don't think we're on Earth."

 _"That makes quite a bit more sense, Peter,"_ Karen said, voice echoing around his skull.

"You're right," Jane said, behind him. "We're on Asgard."

 _"Thor_ Asgard?" Peter turned. He did a double take. 

Jane was dressed in some sort of battle armour — a red cape flowed from her metal-clad shoulders and trailed slightly on the ground behind steel-toed boots. A black, scale-like material clung to her torso and legs, her toned arms hanging free. Jane's brown hair cascaded out from under a winged helmet that covered the top half of her face.

"Well, I'm certainly dressed for it," Jane joked, before removing her helmet and tucking it in the crook of her arm. She looked wary, but determined.

"What are we doing _here?"_ Peter asked. "Not that I'm complaining, because I'm _not_ , because this is _Asgard_ , but —"

Jane grimaced. "There's an Infinity Stone here, Peter. Think back. What was the one thing that Thanos wanted during the Battle of New York?"

"The Tesseract," Peter answered promptly. "Even though we only found that out after the S.H.I.E.L.D. leaks," he added as an afterthought.

Nostalgically, Peter thought about the nights in a row he and Aunt May had spent trailing through mission reports and memos at their kitchen table. That had been one of the few good memories he had about that time — before everything had gone wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Jane nodded, shaking him out of his memories. "Right. He wanted it so badly that he was willing to give a trickster god a staff with the Mind Stone to get his way. And when he didn't succeed, Thor brought his brother and the Tesseract here, to Asgard."

"So…"

"Isn't it kind of weird that Death sent us here first?" Jane lead. "Unless…"

"…Unless the Tesseract was some kind of Infinity Stone," Peter caught on. "Makes sense. It was the first one we knew about properly." 

He cocked an eyebrow underneath his mask. "Lead the way?"

"If I can remember," she joked, and they walked towards the entrance of the hall he'd woken up in. "I've only been here once, but I still don't think I could ever forget my way around this place."

Jane and Peter began to navigate their way through the silent streets of what looked to be the upper town. Exiting the hall, Peter let out a low, echoing whistle as they travelled down a road that looked like it was paved with silver. Leaves rustled and fled down the cobbles. 

Market tables, lined with dusty fruit that still looked edible, boots and clothing that Karen helpfully noted were lined with something called Younger Futhark and old, open books that were flipped to the very last page. Peter shivered as the metallic edging of Jane's cape skidded across the street. 

Before long, they came to a courtyard where the silver switched to melted gold coins from all over the world. Just from his own knowledge, Peter spotted some Pound Sterlings, a couple of Euros and even some American Gold Eagles. Swords were scattered across the gold, some drawn, some not; Peter kept light on his feet as he made his way across. He didn't want to lose any toes.

Suddenly, Jane spread out an arm to stop him from moving any further. Peter stumbled, but quickly gained his footing and looked at her questioningly.

Her hazel eyes, steely, stared into his soul from under her helmet. 

"We're here," she announced, solemnly. "Odin's vault."

Jane leant down and tugged at a rope handle connected to a circular door in the floor. 

Peter made an unmanly sound and jumped back as lines of yellow lines flowed from where the rope met the wood and filled the gaps and rough cracks in it. Jane let go as the circular door swung anti-clockwise, revealing a single ladder than ran down to an inky black void.

"Ladies first," Peter offered, swallowing.

Despite his fears, he found himself scaling down the bricks as Jane climbed down the ladder, back to back. He had to trust his senses, closing his eyes and listening to the calm voice of his AI assuring him that there wasn't long to go and that he'd be back on solid ground soon enough. Soon enough. Soon enough.

Peter's padded shoes weren't enough to keep him from feeling the cold of the metal floor. A chill that rippled from his toes to the tips of his hair. He looked up at the hatch and shivered as it clanged shut by itself.

_"Would you like me to start up night vision mode, Peter?"_

"I'm fine, Karen, thanks," he assured her under his breath. "Jane knows where she's going. I think."

 _"If you’re sure,"_ Karen said dubiously, before going quiet once again. Peter stifled a laugh and followed the sound of Jane's soles down the metal floor.

They ducked into another corridor lit by gold, warm lamps. Lining the walls were paintings that seemed to move behind his eyelids whenever he blinked and war trophies from a different time. Everything was immaculately taken care of. Peter wondered what kind of qualifications you needed to guard the vault of Odin. Did Asgard _have_ universities?

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spotted a faint flicker of blue behind a wall. He tapped Jane on the shoulder and pointed towards it. Jane nodded and cautiously stepped forward, him right behind her.

As soon as it came into vision properly he knew exactly what the light was coming from. A hand-sized cube on a pedestal was glowing brightly, the shadows it was casting harsh and cutting into the wall.

The Tesseract.

Peter leant forward to grab it but Jane stayed his hand. She bent down to have a better look at it and frowned.

"You should _never_ hold an Infinity Stone bare handed," she warned. "Betty told me that. They're _massive_ energy sources. It could rip right through you."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Peter asked. 

Jane squinted at the cube harder. She pushed up her helmet for added vision.

"Uh… is everything okay?"

"I think there's something in here," she replied, unsure. "It's like a… gem?"

"Huh." Peter crossed his arms. "Can I take a look?"

She budged over and he crouched down. There _was_ something inside — it looked like some kind of roughly textured bicycle light. It wasn't until he had backed off that he realised Karen had darkened his vision for him. And then realised where exactly he'd seen the gem before. 

On Thanos's glove.

"That's an Infinity Stone," Peter said, confident.

"What? No, the Tesseract — Oh." Jane blinked. "You think it's a _holder_ for the Stone?"

He nodded. "Though I have no idea how to get it out. No Velcro, no nothing. You'd need something — or someone — really strong to break it open."

Jane sighed, her shoulders dropping. She went to look to the skies for guidance, but Peter could see something catch her eye and the physicist stared at it. Peter turned to face the pedestal opposite the Tesseract and gaped.

"Holy sugar. Is that —"

Jane grinned. "Hello, Mjolnir," she said. "Haven't seen _you_ for a long time."

They walked to it and Jane gripped the handle before Peter could. 

"I'm sorry, but I’ve _always_ wanted to do this," she explained to him, not bothering to hide her excitement.

He raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, no complaints here."

Jane laughed, before attempting to heft it up with both her hands. 

An electric hum filled the room, growing louder and louder with every tug that Jane made. A bead of sweat ran down her arms and onto the hammer, dripping off of it onto the pedestal. Jane huffed, planted her feet, and switched her posture so she was only holding the handle with one hand. Once again, she tugged.

And Mjolnir came up free.

Shocked, Peter stared at Jane who was flipping it around like it was nobody's business.

"What? It's lighter than it looks," she half-defended, unable to keep the smile off of her face.

He shook his head as they swivelled back to the side of the room with the Tesseract on. How on Earth were they gonna get it out?

Peter gasped. Brainwave.

"I've just had a totally terrible idea," he confessed. 

Jane made a go-on gesture with the hand not gripping the magic hammer.

"I web the Tesseract towards you and you hit it with, uh — with Mjolnir." He tried to pronounce it correctly, but sort of gave up halfway through the word. "Kind of like Tetherball."

"You're right. That is a terrible idea," she deadpanned, "but we've got no better ones. Go on, then."

He shrugged. "Batter up," he quipped.

As fast as lightning, Peter shot a web at the Tesseract and grabbed the connection firmly. He twirled on his heel, ignoring the sizzling sound that the cube made as it was swung around. Jane gripped the hammer's handle firmly and spun the opposite way, weapon outstretched. A large crack sounded out before the newly freed gem fell to the floor along with shards of the Tesseract.

"That is so cool," Peter said, as Jane clipped Mjolnir onto a leather hook on her belt. "It's, like, pulsing."

The gem stopped glowing for a second. Then it disappeared.

"Uh," he said. "Where'd it go?"

Jane boggled. "You _lost_ it?"

"What? No —"

Panicking, it was then Peter noticed the translucent plastic belt bag that had just appeared on his suit. Even through the gaudy orange-tinted polypropylene, he could just about see the Stone in it.

"— Found it," he assured her weakly. "No need to worry."

"Good," said Jane. "Ugh, I really threw my back out with that swing."

But the teenager was preoccupied with something else. A headache had began to build up between his two temples and with every growing moment it grew stronger. He tried to call out to Jane, but it was too much for his brain to handle. He closed his eyes. Almost immediately, the pressure began to relieve itself and he let out a sigh he didn't even know he was holding.

When he opened his eyes again, Peter did a double take.

 _Toto, we're not in Asgard anymore,_ he thought as he stared at the brick and mortar buildings around him.


	9. Binary

Instead of being in an underground vault, Peter was standing under a bus stop with signs in an unfamiliar language. He stepped out from under it and walked in a small circle, taking in the sights of a low-rise city. The abrupt change left him reeling and he found himself slumping to the floor, winded.

"Karen, is your GPS still not working?"

_"Actually, Peter,"_ Karen chirped, " _it's just gone back online. You're in… This can't be right. I'll check again."_

"Why, what did you come up with?"

_"By all accounts,"_ she worried, " _my systems say that this is —"_

"Sokovia, circa pre-Ultron," someone interrupted. Peter looked up quickly, then stood as he saw who it was.

"Hey, Spider-Man," Johnny said, waving a flaming hand.

He still looked exactly as he had when Death had transformed him — on fire and slightly confused. Unlike Jane, Johnny hadn't been given any sort of super-armour. Dressed in the same t-shirt and jeans as he had worn this morning, Peter marvelled at the fact that they hadn't even been singed by the flames that erupted from underneath the sleeves and covered his entire body. 

Apparently, Lady Death still had some tricks up her sleeve.

Peter frowned. "Where's Jane?" he asked, and Johnny shrugged.

"No clue, man. I woke up here alone. Then I looked over and I saw a certain vigilante," he grinned. "So, ready to go on a weird-alien-artefact-treasure hunt?"

"I'm a proper Avenger now," Peter said primly. "And yeah, sure. Though I have no idea why we're here, of all places."

_"The Mind Stone was located here,"_ Karen chimed in. _"Before the creation of Vision, of course."_

"What, really?" Peter asked. "How do you know that?"

"Who are you talking to, esé?" Johnny asked, concern lacing his voice. "It's just you and me here."

"Oh!" He exclaimed, wanting to sink into the Earth. "Uh, Karen, speaker on. Karen's a super cool A.I. that helps me out when I’m in my suit. She's totally awesome. Karen, meet Johnny Storm."

"Er, hi?" his friend tried. 

Awkward silence reigned for a second, before Karen responded. " _Jonatán 'Johnny' Storm, born to María Alvarez and Franklin Storm, is a New York-based social media influencer and motocross cyclist. I have two hundred and thirty-five files associated with him in my database. Would you like me to access them?"_

Peter raised his hands in surrender as Johnny cocked a orange-red eyebrow at him. "Um, she's kind got a few bugs since I went into space, I think. Hah. Uh. Karen, what do you mean the Mind Stone's here?"

_"According to the press release from the Ultron Incident,"_ Karen replied, _"scientists under the employ of HYDRA performed experiments using the unique properties and powers of the Sceptre the Asgardian Loki used during the Battle Of New York. When Ultron attempted to build a better version of themself, they broke the Sceptre to claim the gem in order to use it when building their new body."_

"Where is it here?" Johnny asked.

_"Still in the HYDRA facility,"_ she informed him. _"It has had nowhere else to go."_

A map appeared in the corner of Peter's heads-up display. Three routes stretched off from what he assumed was their current location and converged at a single point up in the mountains. He looked up and to his left where the point was.

A fortified stone structure curled into the hills and cut an impressive shadow over the land near it. It was half-obscured by trees, but Peter could guess where it started and where it began. The stone was yellowed and uncared for — even from his place in the city he could see the worn away and crumbled parts.

_Thank you, 4K Spider-Vision._

He pointed to the facility so Johnny could see where it was. "There are three routes —"

"You know, the shortest route is always a straight line," Johnny commented.

Peter frowned. "We can't go in a straight line. It's literally up in the hills."

His friend smirked. His skin seemed to flicker brighter and Peter stood transfixed as his feet began to lift off the ground. Johnny looked down at him and Peter coughed out a laugh at the full foot of height difference.

"How is that even possible?"

"Damned if I know," he replied, his grin like a solar flare, "but it's cool as hell. So, last one there has to fight Thanos one-on-one, Spider-Man?"

Peter grinned. "You're on, Human Torch."

He shot a web at one of the sides of the Sokovian buildings and started swinging, alternating between buildings, lampposts and running on cars parked in gridlock. 

Swing, shoot, swing, shoot.

Whenever he looked upwards, he could spot Johnny flying with his arms stretched out, leaving a trail of fire after him. Johnny caught his eyes and did a loop.

"Show-off!" he called out. 

Johnny made an obscene gesture towards him. 

Peter waved it off with a free hand.

"At least I'm not the one wearing _spandex!"_ his friend shouted gleefully, climbing ever higher.

Eventually, though, Peter found himself running out of concrete jungle. On top of a rooftop, he started running as fast as he could, launching himself off the side. 

With a click, he deployed his web-wings, making sure to catch as much air as he could. Then, momentum at the max, Peter began to shoot webs at the ground to push himself up further and keep himself in the air. There was no use trying to web to the trees — unless he wanted to tangle himself up in the branches. 

Which he didn't. Not again. He'd learned a lesson from that particular cat rescue.

The facility wasn't that far off now. As Peter got closer, he could almost feel how imposing it was. He swallowed down the bile that threatened to build up in his throat as he thought about the last building he went to that was crumbling around him. Except, this time, he reminded himself, there was no Vulture to try and kill him.

There was no one here, apart from their group.

As he was semi-flying, Peter wondered idly where everyone else was. He assumed Jane was still on Asgard — if she'd travelled with him to Sokovia, she would have probably ended up near him. He would know. But where was everyone else? Were they at the other places that the Infinity Stones were? He thought it seemed likely, but that still didn't answer why he has the one moving around. Maybe Death needed some sort of collector.

Peter was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of his webs thunking onto the ground changing. He looked down properly and saw with a start he was directly above the HYDRA compound. Grunting, he shot a line of web from each shooter onto the courtyard and catapulted himself onto the yellow stone. Immediately, he cringed; a musty smell that refused to be filtered out through his mask crawled up his nose.

A flaming hand caught Peter's attention from the other side of the yard, and he sighed, smiling. Of _course_ Johnny had got there first.

"Beat ya' here," Johnny said, walking towards him and grinning. "Fair and square, Spidey."

"Yeah, yeah," he quipped back, "not like I wasn't planning to fight him anyway. Karen, how close are we?"

_"I'm picking up some similar readings to the other Infinity Stone underneath us."_

"There's probably a door somewhere around us then," Peter remarked. "We should look —"

He was interrupted by the sound of Johnny smashing his fists into the stone below them. Peter jumped back in shock, then gave him a withering look. Johnny shrugged.

"Straight line," he reminded him, before hopping down the hole. 

Peter rolled his eyes and followed him down.

Underneath them was a dark, dank chamber lit by barred windows. Part of it was entirely devoted to two cells, back to back; the beds looked tired and the walls stripped bare. In the middle of the room, he could see a lot of incredibly expensive diagnostic equipment and computers. Most of it was centred around a stand in the middle holding no other than a golden sceptre. Loki's Sceptre. Coughing through the dust, he approached it cautiously.

One step lead to another, and he soon found himself reaching towards it. It was like a magnetic pull. He needed to hold it. He _had_ to wield it.

Peter barely registered Karen's concern before his eyes widened and he slunk back, bumping into Johnny slightly. Making a beeline for the front of the cell bars, he waved his friend over before sitting down.

"I don't think we should be near that unless it's totally necessary," he explained.

Johnny looked at him. "Any particular reason?"

"Well, seeing as though I’ve just had some pretty disturbing thoughts about dictatorship and power, I kind of realised that that thing's probably really dangerous," he babbled. "I mean, dude, Loki was as crazy as a bag of cats before he had that. And with it, he tried to take over New York."

"That does make sense," the other teen remarked, "but honestly, I was as close as you and I had no problems whatsoever being near it."

"In any case, I should probably stay here. You know, sitting down, minding my own business."

"Sure, Pete," Johnny agreed. "I'll just stand here all alone next to the genocidal stick."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "I thought you were perfectly fine?"

In return, his friend gave him the stink eye (or as much as he could manage without a visible pupil or iris) and turned back towards the Sceptre. 

Cautiously, Johnny reached out towards the handle. His fingers curled around it, lifting it up slightly — and then suddenly dropping it back down again with a clatter. As the weapon rolled on the floor, Johnny shook his head in confusion and pointed to the place that he'd held it.

Using the suit's capabilities, Peter zoomed in on the middle of the Sceptre. There were five grooves, one for each finger — but they didn't look stylised or even like they were supposed to be there. Johnny had melted it nearly clean through.

He scrambled to his feet. "Johnny, could you do that again? Except on the part with the Infinity Stone in it?"

Wordlessly, his friend knelt over the Sceptre and pushed his hands towards the top of it, almost like he was warming them — but Peter knew it was the other way round. Concentrating on something, Johnny closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.

Beads of gold and silver metal formed on the sides of it, dripping off like raindrops onto the floor. The blue casing clattered onto the floor underneath them, causing a small crack to form on the floor. The blue crisscross-patterned glass over it clicked open and scuttled back into nothing, revealing a yellow gem.

The Mind Stone.

Like the Stone before it, it stopped glowing and disappeared. This time though, Peter didn't have to check his awful man-purse — he knew exactly where it had gone.

Weirdly, though, the impending headache didn't appear. He shivered as a bracing wind brushed past him. He looked at one of the barred windows in suspicion. It was slightly broken with a small thin _something_ stuffed in the gap. Unsuccessfully, Peter thought. It was really freaking cold.

He walked over to the thing and pulled it out, brushing a couple of small shards off of it. It was a piece of glossy paper folded over a couple of times — a photograph, Peter realised, looking at the smudged blue pen on the back. The writing was unintelligible — he was unfamiliar with the language and, plus, it had obviously been rained on and ruined. He had no chance.

But, flipping the photo over and seeing the scene, he realised he didn't have to read who it was of anyway. He _knew_ those faces.

Making a decision, Peter opened the plastic belt bag and put the photo inside, nestled next to the two Infinity Stones.

He groaned as the migraine invaded his head again with a vengeance. Taking off his mask, Peter began to massage his temples and his forehead and basically anything else that felt like it was starting to split open. _Ugh,_ he thought. 

He wasn't sure whether it was the spider side talking or the headache when he thought suddenly that it was probably a good idea to curl up in a dark room somewhere and recuperate. Soon. Soon would be good.

"Peter?"

Peter sighed. "Johnny, I'm fine, I swear."

"'Johnny?' I understand I look different, but I didn't think it was _that_ different."

He looked to his left. And then up. And then up again until his neck complained.

_"Betty?"_


	10. Ternary

_"Betty?"_

Yellow eyes watched him as Peter gaped up at her. Her skin was a bright, deep garnet red. Most of her hair was still tied up in a loose bun, but the rest had escaped and was trailing down her back. 

Her normal brown locks were gone, replaced by ripples of oil-slick black. Two sections of it, the parts framing her face, were as red as her skin. Betty still had her lab coat on but it was nearly ripped to shreds, newly huge muscles peeking through. She'd gained about a foot in height. 

And she definitely looked like she could kill someone if she wanted to.

Despite all that, though, Betty still looked like someone he could trust.

"You…" Peter gestures helplessly. "…Wow."

"I know." She shrugged. "I look like that lobster guy from Spongebob Squarepants."

"Larry," Peter corrected without thinking, then cringed. "And you totally don't. You look like — well, you look like some sort of badass RPG character. I'd want you in my party for sure."

She raised her eyebrows. "Thanks, I guess. Where are we?"

"I have absolutely no idea." Peter looked around himself properly for the first time and whistled.

In front of them — well, all around them in fact — was a labyrinth of glass display cases. Most were empty; they had been shattered open by some external force, causing the top halves to be missing or fractured. Something had definitely happened here. 

Trays and tables were strewn about, each carrying objects that looked priceless — because some were expensive and because the rest looked like trash. Peter swore he saw a Starbucks cup sat next to a jewelled crown. Whoever owned this place needed to go on _Hoarders_. Or _Queer Eye._

The museum (there was no other fitting word, apart from maybe dump) was massive. Peter couldn't see the ceiling from where he was standing; it was incredibly dark and dank. The lights were harsh and cold and flickered like fireflies from the cases, illuminating what he assumed were entries about what had been in there. 

The language was foreign, in some kind of script that was incredibly, totally… alien.

Peter slipped his mask back on.

"Karen, have you got GPS?" he whispered. After the _two-hundred and thirty-five associated files_ incident, he wanted to keep her up his sleeve. If only to save himself from embarrassment.

 _"Apologies, Peter,"_ the A.I. responded, sounding sheepish. _"My maps feature is once again compromised. I have a feeling this might be a common theme as we progress."_

"No prob, K," he assured her. "Thanks anyway." Peter grinned as his chest tightened for a split second, as if he were being hugged by Karen. 

He turned to Betty who was picking at a loose thread from her lab coat and cleared his throat. 

"I don't think we're on Earth anymore. Call it… spider intuition, I guess."

Betty nodded, frowning. "Me neither," she agreed. "The pictures on these entries… the creation of these species would have to have some pretty specific conditions to develop. Conditions that wouldn’t be possible on Earth. As a cell biologist, I’d have to say I agree with you." Betty sighed. "This is so not how I wanted to visit an alien planet."

"Oh?" Peter tried his best to sound not interested, but this was _Betty Ross_ he was talking to. She was amazing. He could fanboy a little.

"Yeah. I expected more buff Asgardians or something. Not utter silence," she remarked. "Anyway, aren't we supposed to be finding an Infinity Stone? As per the orders of Lady Death? God, this is hurting my brain."

"You're telling me," said Peter. "And, yeah. Two down, four to go. There has to be one here."

 _"If I could interrupt?"_ Karen interjected, distracting him. _"I'm picking up the same energy readings not far from here as I did in Sokovia and Asgard. It seems to be coming from your left."_

"Hey, remember that spider intuition I told you about?" he asked Betty. She nodded. "Uh, it just flared up again. We should look to our left. Probably."

Betty gave him a suspicious look before turning. "Awful useful thing, your intuition."

"Just call me Shawn Spencer," he muttered under his breath, following her. 

_Wait,_ he thought, _would that make Ned Gus? And MJ Jules? Or would MJ be Lassie?_ Clearly, Peter decided, this deserved further thought, and so he filed it away for a rainy day. Hopefully one just after another _Psych_ -binge watch.

"How much further?" 

"What?" Peter asked, then nearly facepalmed and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Uh, Karen?"

 _"Stop just before the small throne, Peter."_ He heard the simulated smile in her voice and had to spare one of his own for her. 

Peter relayed the information to Betty, who nodded and offered a hand. He furrowed his eyebrows and took it, and then immediately whooped as Betty lifted him onto her broad shoulders.

"Better vantage point?"

"Totally."

From the six feet and ten inches he was up in the air, Peter knew he had a great view. Up there he could see exactly where and when the museum ended and began. Unfortunately, though, it looked at least a while away. 

Now that he could see the walls properly, Peter noted how industrial and cold it all seemed — clinical, almost as if all the stuff in it was put there as an afterthought. It was an interesting design scheme, but not one he would especially want in his room at home.

Absentmindedly, Peter listened to the small slaps Betty's bare feet made on the floor. He wondered where her shoes were.

They carried on like that for a while — Peter piggybacking on Betty — before Betty came to an abrupt stop, nearly vaulting the teenager off of her back from the force. He waved his arms about, trying to keep his balance, before he gave up and let them fall to the ground with the rest of his body, legs still swung over her shoulders. 

When she looked back in concern, Peter gave Betty a thumbs up before completely committing to falling off and ending up in a groaning heap on the floor. Gracefully, of course.

"We're here."

"Yeah, I got that," Peter said, getting up. "Hey, do you know a good chiropractor? I think I threw my back out."

Betty ignored him, choosing to move closer to the throne. She knelt down to inspect the area surrounding it further.

"So where's the Stone?" she asked, maybe rhetorically. Peter couldn't decide if it was or not and so shrugged back. Better to be safe than sorry.

"It has to be _somewhere_ around here." Peter knelt next to her, then got on his hands until he could see underneath. As he did so, Peter felt pins and needles start up in his fingers. _Good old spider-senses._ He was getting closer.

Just out of his reach, under the seat, Peter could see a black container laid on its side. A glowing band of red surrounded it near the top. It looked like someone could screw the top off and get whatever was in it out. What if that was what the Infinity Stone was in?

"Betty, get back," he requested. Peter had had another amazing idea. Well, if 'amazing' meant kind of obvious. Most amazing things were.

Shooting a web at the box, the teenager swiped it from its resting piece under the chair and pulled it towards Betty and himself. An unsatisfying clunking sound thumped each time it turned onto a new place. Eventually, the container got close enough for him to pick up — and even though it was heavy, he held it close to his chest and ripped off the top.

Peter's mask was bathed in a sea of red, almost making him look like he was just about to tell an incredibly scary story in the dead of night and accidentally brought along a floodlight with a red gel on it instead of a regular flashlight. He wasn't blinded. The suit had made sure of that by closing his eye shutters just enough so he could see and re-tinting them so the picture was darker — some kind of new tech that was probably worth more than his entire life, knowing Mr. Stark. 

Inside the container was a sea of dark red fluid. It flowed like water with some sand mixed in, but was the colour of a deep ruby wine. There was no discernible smell, except from a faint, sharp whiff of motor oil that reminded Peter of old road trips to national parks and filling up the tank whilst his Aunt and Uncle supervised. He wanted to stick his hands in it, but got the feeling it was a capital lettered Bad Idea.

He tore his eyes away from the world of red between his hands. Shielding her bright yellow eyes from the equally bright container, Betty was looking agitated.

"Y'know, isn't the Infinity Stone supposed to be, you know, a Stone?" she complained. "That looks like soup."

Peter nodded as he turned the fluid around in the container, watching it slosh about. "Yeah," he replied. "This is totally weird. What do you think we should do?"

She shook her head, finally freeing the rest of her hair from the ill-fated elastic. "Honestly? No idea. I'm a professor of cellular biology. Like we said at the meeting, there's no book to follow for this. Although…" Betty trailed off, a contemplative look in her eye.

Setting the container down, Peter frowned. "What?" 

"Which Infinity Stones have you collected so far?" 

A short bark of laughter came from the woman as Peter's eyes widened. 

"Yes, Peter, even though you haven't actually told me about it, I know. You're following this through like you've done it before — and, despite your awkwardness about it, you're way more sold on the concept of _finding Infinity Stones for Lady Death_ than I am. And, no offence, you're a teenager. You're kind of supposed to be questioning everything. I'll ask you again. Which Infinity Stones have you managed to find?"

Peter sighed and tilted his head sheepishly. "Um, there was a blue one in Asgard — but I’m not sure which one that was. It was the one in the Tesseract from the Battle Of New York. And we found the Mind Stone in Sokovia. That's it. And, plus," he cocked an eyebrow, "I resent that remark about questioning everything. There are several _Buzzfeed: Unsolved_ episodes I have taken at face value."

Betty looked up at the abyss-covered ceiling in thought, then back at the teenager. "Correct me if I’m wrong, Peter, but would it be possible to use the other Stones to solidify it?"

"We could give it a try," Peter said, praying for the invisible plastic magical man-bag to appear at his side. _Any time now,_ he thought. It remained stubbornly out of existence.

_I swear to actual Thor, if you embarrass me in front of Betty Ross…_

He felt it before he saw it, the smooth edges brushing against his gloves. Quickly, Peter ripped open the stud that was sealing the bag and watched in amazement as the two Stones rose up in the air and hovered for a second, before dropping directly down into the container, burying themselves deep into the liquid. Peter's heart sunk as they did so. Now what was he going to do?

Almost to answer him, the centre of the liquid began to contract and swirl around, creating a whirlpool. It was as if someone had pulled a plug and it was being let out. Down it went, disappearing to goodness knows where. Soon, it had drained nearly all the way to the bottom, revealing the two Stones sat in a row — and another gem, this time the colour of the fluid, placed in the middle. If he concentrated hard enough, Peter could see the sand-water texture of the liquid trapped inside the Stone, swirling around and folding in on itself.

Huh.

This time, Peter counted the pulses the three gems made before they inevitably disappeared, one by one. Before he followed suit, he looked at Betty for — well, he didn't know what. Guidance, maybe. She nodded at him. 

"Carry on as you intend to finish," Betty said, squeezing his shoulder lightly with a red hand.

Peter had no time to contemplate this before the burning started up again in his head. He only had time to shoot her a grateful smile — one she couldn’t even see through his mask — before he succumbed and closed his eyes.

The travel was taking its toll, and he knew it. He wanted to go to sleep, maybe for a long time. If he kept his eyes closed for longer, he knew he would.

But Peter Parker had a responsibility. And work to do.

So when he opened them to see a very familiar mask inches from his face, he refused to freak out. 

Okay, maybe he did freak out a bit. 

But just a little.


	11. Quaternary

_Maybe imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, but this was probably taking things a bit too far,_ Peter decided. As he stared up at the design he'd created in the middle of a chemistry lesson whilst he was supposed to be taking notes, the teenager slowed his breathing. Maybe this was a clone or something. An evil clone. 

He looked down the clone's suit. The only big difference in body shape was —

"Eyes up here, dumbass," Gwen's voice filtered through the mask. "I have a boyfriend."

_"Gwen?"_

The mask was made of more flimsy material than his suit. It reminded him of his homemade suit, but it looked better stitched together. Whoever had made it had gone through the trouble of attaching sunglasses lenses for the eyes in order to disguise her identity. A white hood covered most of her head, _Assassin's Creed_ style, hiding the back of the mask so it couldn't be ripped off easily. Smart idea.

The rest of the homemade suit followed the white colour scheme that the hood had set, being white with small web detailing in places set against pink sections under her hood and on her arms. Black dyed fabric covered most of her legs and her torso. Gwen had forgone the in-suit soles that Peter had and gone instead for a pair of bright blue Vans, which he was sure she was wearing beforehand.

She shook off her hood and pushed up her mask, grinning. 

"Cool, huh? I think I might rock the look even better than you."

The other teenager rocked back as he rolled over to face her better. Gwen had been crouching next to his raised body — looking down, Peter deduced that he was laid over a set of chairs that were pushed together. It was distinctly uncomfortable.

Recovered from his initial shock, Peter shook his head. "Keep dreaming, Gwen," he said, "I look fabulous. Where are we, by the way?" 

He sat up, surveying his surroundings. They were sat in a corridor. It was very hospital-chic — the walls were a sterile white and the floors were grey and speckled. There was quite a bit of luxury, though — holograms depicting battles, newspaper articles and statistics lined the walls, the flow of information running down them like wet paint.

Gwen shrugged. "No idea," she replied. "I'd just sent Keener off to get some information when you arrived."

Peter's eyes widened. "There's another person here? Weird," he commented.

"How is that weird?"

"It's just that in all the other places I’ve been to so far, it's just been me and only _one_ other person," he explained. "I'm sure it's probably nothing to worry about. Maybe."

"All the other places you've been to?"

All of a sudden, a low whirring noise echoed down the corridor from behind him. Peter swivelled round and temporarily lost all ability to speak.

A hot-rod red suit of armour turned the corner, striding with purpose. Lines of gold wrapped around the metal, looking a little bit like go-faster stripes. An arc reactor sat in a simple circle in the chest plate, white hot. Blue repulsor were laid in the hands. Ready for use, maybe? On one of the arms, what looked like a hi-tech version of a spud gun was molded to the suit, the only part that wasn’t aerodynamic. Each step made Peter's heart jump.

He couldn't be here. He _couldn’t._

"Mr. Stark?"

An unexpected laugh emitted through the Armour's speaker system.

"He said we're connected, but I didn't think that much." The face plate flipped up, revealing a baby-faced teenager. Harley made his way over to the duo as Peter let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. _Thank goodness._

"Did you find anything out?"

Harley made a face. "Not really," he said. "Even with the translation capabilities of the suit, the information was… patchy. It recognises patterns in languages in order to translate and compares them with others, right? So a completely alien language with a pattern that doesn't match any of the ones that are in here is gonna be hard. On the bright side," he added, "I did manage to download what looked like a map."

A 3D model projected from the wrist that wasn't molded to the potato shooter. Three red _you-are-here_ dots blinked in a group in the middle of the map. Rooms were labelled in a blocky script that reminded Peter of the tiny amount of Cyrillic Bucky had attempted to teach him during their stay in the afterlife.

"So," Peter said, "which way do we go?"

"I'd say down that way," replied Gwen, jabbing at the map. "There's more rooms. Maybe there's some kind of vault."

He sighed as they began walking, following the map. "Hopefully not. Too many vaults for one day."

 _"Too many —_ " Gwen shook her head and grabbed his arm. "Okay, spill."

"Apparently, Lady Death has decided to make me her personal intern, or whatever. I'm the one having to, like, bring all the Infinity Stones together." Peter shrugged. "No biggie, except I have to put them in this butt-ugly plastic fanny pack that doesn't exist half of the time."

Harley snorted, his face plate slamming back down. "She seemed really stylish when we met her. Maybe she's just messing with you."

They turned a sharp corner. Floor to ceiling windows lined the following corridor, and looking out Peter realised they were on a walkway suspended over a lake. The land surrounding them was covered in lots of trees and low-rise buildings, though if he squinted through the glass enough he could definitely see high-risers in the distance. 

The place made him remember an old school project from freshman year — designing a city of the future. It had been the first time he had met Ned, and they hit it off straight away, annoying literally everyone else in the class by talking about the new Star Wars movie non-stop. In the end, they got Second-In-Class after finishing the project the night before. MJ and her partner had gotten first place, of course.

Peter's eyes flicked over to Harley's map. They would soon have to go down a few floors. What was the obsession with putting Infinity Stones underground, by the way? Surely it would make people want to steal them more if they were obviously locked away, he thought.

Before he knew it, Harley, Gwen and himself had manage to squeeze themselves into an elevator. Wordlessly, Peter watched as the ground grew ever closer and as they were lowered past it. Small lights in the ceiling and the floor flickered on so they weren't in total darkness. Face lit by Harley's arc reactor, Gwen pulled her mask back down and threw her hood up. She nodded at him. He nodded back.

The doors reopened with a clang against the walls. The trio stepped out onto a floor that looked no less impersonal than those higher up; the only difference that Peter could see was that there were no holograms with information on the walls — or seats or windows, for that matter. He began to walk forward but was stopped by a metal arm.

"Do you have any vision filters, Spider-Man?" Harley asked. He seemed wary.

Peter frowned. "Yeah, why — oh," he realised as Karen helpfully switched to another mode. "Not good."

"Well, I don't," Gwen reminded them. "So, uh, if you want to share with the class…"

"Lasers," he summarised. "Big _leave-me-alone_ lasers that you'd have to be a contortionist to get through. Bad news."

"They seem to be controlled by that panel over there," added Harley, pointing to a strip of silver built into the wall. "Give me a second." He walked over to the panel and shot it at close range with a repulsor, causing it to clatter to the floor. He poked one of the wires experimentally and Peter saw one of the lasers flicker off in response, only to come back online in a matter of seconds.

"It looks like it's some kind of self-healing, self-reconnecting network. Pretty cool. If I had more time, it would be interesting to try and recreate it. You up for it, Peter? When we get back?" Peter got the feeling Harley was grinning under the face plate, and so nodded.

Gwen hummed. "So, if you shot at the wiring, disabling it completely, how long do you think it would take to come back?"

"Why?"

"If it's slower than Peter and I can web ourselves across," she reasoned, "maybe we can… web ourselves across."

Harley shrugged. "Let's find out."

He took one step back, then another, and re-angled the arm with the spun gun towards the open panel. The gun lit up, then darkened as a ball of energy was flung out. Sparks flew in every direction and Peter watched as all of the lasers fizzled out.

"Karen, are you counting?" he whispered.

 _"Of course, Peter,"_ came the instant response. _"Current count at six seconds, seven, eight, nine…"_

"Thanks."

Harley turned towards him. "…Did you say something?"

"Uh, hah, no," Peter answered. "Just, ah, there's a frog in my mouth. Ahem. A- _hem_. There, all gone."

"Frog in your throat, you mean."

"Same thing."

He gave him an assessing once over. "You know, I used to be jealous of you," Harley remarked.

Peter pointed at himself dumbly, and within a few seconds he just knew that Harley was rolling his eyes under the Armour.

"Yes, you, Peter. I saw Spider-Man swinging across New York and into the front page of the Daily Bugle in what was clearly StarkTech and I — well, I was in the area for college and yeah, I saw a kid, not that much younger than me, being supported by his hero. It was weird, especially when the last time Tony had talked to me was when he gave me a garage refurbishment." Harley shrugged. "And I was grateful for that. I really was. But seeing Iron Man endorsing you, giving you the support you needed to be as much you as you could be when he basically 'forgot' about me —" he broke off into a bitter laugh. "I don't know."

Gwen crossed her arms. "And now?"

Harley looked straight at him. "Now, seeing you doing what you do, I'm thinking — you probably deserved that mentoring. You're a good kid, a good person. Maybe I deserved it too. But, bless his heart, Tony couldn't be in two places at once. So, yeah. Sorry about that."

Peter nodded, a bit lost for words. "Forgiven, man. No worries. I was always a bit jealous of you to be honest. You were the dude that got to live a normal life after interacting with the Avengers. Not many people get to do that." He raised an eyebrow. "Hey, where did you go for college?"

"Um, NYIT for the first year, then CalTech for the rest. Went early — the whole of Rose Hill chipped in to help with the costs and even then I had to sell some equipment. Worth it, though."

"NYIT or CalTech?"

Harley tilted his head. "Doesn't Tony have his heart set on MIT for you?" he asked in a wry voice. Peter chuckled, the ice broken.

"Well —"

Karen cleared her synthesised throat. _"Sorry to interrupt, Peter, but the lasers came back online a while ago."_

Peter looked back. Sure enough, they were back. "Huh. How long was that?"

_"Thirty-nine seconds."_

Peter repeated what Karen said and Gwen shifted, looking at Harley. "Corridor's long as hell, Keener," she commented, worry in her voice. "We gonna get across in time?"

"You might, but I probably won't by flying," Harley said. "You're gonna have to leave me here."

"Hell no we're not," she argued back. "You're coming with us. We're a team."

"It just — it doesn't look possible, Gwen. Plus, this place — this whole universe — is empty. Who's gonna bother me?"

"Famous last words," he heard her mutter, before she clapped Harley on the arm. "Fine, Keener, but be ready with that shooter. We're coming back for you. Aren't we, Peter?"

Peter swallowed a headache-and-teleportation induced protest and nodded. "Yeah."

Harley stood silent for a moment, Gwen's promise sinking in. Then he nodded.

"Get ready," he said, and shot at the panel again.

As soon as the lasers went down, Peter launched a retractable web at the far wall, and, following him, Gwen did the same. Jumping high, they were dragged through the air towards the wall. Quickly, Peter adjusted his body so he'd land feet first. With a satisfying clang, Peter and Gwen slammed into the wall, causing a (well, not _huge)_ dent. They scaled down back onto the ground and looked back at Harley, who looked frozen. Gwen waved at him.

The lasers came back on, obscuring Harley's response from view entirely. He turned to look at Gwen, who was still stuck with her hand in a wave.

"Hey, Gwen," Peter cajoled. "Infinity Stone to find."

She shook herself out of it and nodded. "Right. This way?" Gwen brushed past him and ducked into the final small room. 

There wasn't much in the room, Peter decided, as he entered it himself. Just a couple of metal cages that looked easy enough to jimmy open — easy enough for Gwen to already be at it in front of a particularly small one that purple light was leaking out of.

"My mom's a police captain," she explained as she saw him enter. "Most of my Take-Your-Daughter-To-Work-Days were spent learning some pretty cool tricks." The lock clicked open. "Like that."

Carefully, Peter opened the cage and watched as the purple-coloured Infinity Stone began to pulse madly. As he predicted, it soon disappeared. This time, he didn't even give a cursory glance towards the man-purse at his side. He knew it was there.

Like a bus, the headache returned and slammed into his brain; Peter stumbled a little at the increased force of it. Maybe it was because he had more of the Infinity Stones now, he wondered. Whatever. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to block out Gwen's shouts as he dropped to his knees.

_Three, two, one…_

Just as the headache eased itself, Peter opened his eyes. He was splayed across a set of stairs. The sun was low in the sky, the time of day not-quite-sunset. More than anything, Peter felt tired again. He felt like he could sleep for three straight days. Suddenly, the stone steps looked very comfortable. Perfect to rest his head on.

"Ah — you don't want to rest there," Dr. Strange warned, and Peter straightened up as he looked at the wizard in concern. "You'll have nightmares every Wednesday for the rest of your life." He shrugged. "Kamar-Taj tends to be tricky like that."

The teenager stood up like someone had just electrocuted him. "Thanks for telling me."

Dr. Strange nodded, his cloak swishing around him. He stuck out a hand to pull Peter up with.

"Consider me your personal tour guide."


	12. Quinary

_"Kamar-Taj,"_ Peter repeated, trying out the name as they made their way down a winding corridor. "Isn't this basically your version of Hogwarts?"

"Hogwarts is fictional. Do you know that?" Dr. Strange asked in response. "It's important to me that you know that."

"Wait, dude, was that a Parks and Recreation reference?" Peter questioned. "On another note, what do wizards watch on TV anyway?"

Huffing, Strange turned a corner. "I can see what Stark meant by telling you to zip it on the pop-culture references back then," he grumbled, not entirely unkindly. "And, yes, we're not complete hermits. The New York Sanctum has frequent movie nights."

Peter nodded in response. That day — the day of the MOMA field trip — seemed so far away now. 'Back then' seemed a bit overkill, but it was also a fitting description. To be honest, the whole event — dying, all of it — seemed like a fever dream that he couldn't forget. But it had happened. Strange and Peter walking down the halls of some ancient training grounds was proof of that. 

An uncomfortable silence fell between the two as they walked. _Right,_ Peter thought. _Time for some small talk._

 _Start easy,_ he reminded himself. "So, how'd you become a wizard?" 

Strange sighed. _Whoops_. "The correct term is sorcerer, not 'wizard'. I… I was driving recklessly. I swerved off the road. I was in rehab for many months."

"Oh." He felt very awkward. 'Start easy' was harder than it looked,

"I was desperate to get back to what I deemed normal," continued Strange, "so I contacted an ex-patient of a colleague. He led me here, and here I trained. And the rest… well, the rest is confusing to tell. Involved a lot of time travel and trapping the ruler of the Dark Dimension in a time loop until he left Earth. Took a couple hundred years. I died a lot."

 _Interesting_ , Peter thought. "Using the Time Stone?"

"Yes, in the Eye of Agamotto. This relic, actually, or the original version of it," Strange said, pointing at the necklace he was now wearing. Peter hummed in understanding as Strange tucked it under his wiz — _sorcerer's_ shirt. "Better hide this away before we get to the library. You know how the universe feels about doubles."

Peter, in fact, didn't, but nodded along anyway as if he did. He could probably guess.

"How much longer? To the… library?" Peter asked. 

It wasn't as if he wasn't enjoying the walk through a secret awesome magic temple — because he was. It was awesome. But the sooner they finished this, the sooner Peter could get back to his life. Back to Aunt May. Back to Ned, and MJ, and relative normality, and stopping bike thieves and cats stuck up in trees and studying for the ACT. Back to being a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Not for the first time, he wondered how they were. He hoped May was coping well, if only because he knew if their situations were swapped he wouldn't be. MJ was always cool and composed, but there was no way of telling how she would have reacted. She was unpredictable like that. Ned, though… his best friend was the person he was most worried about. Peter and Ned were like two peas in a slightly nerdy pod. And when his uncle had passed, Peter had turned to vigilantism to cope. He hoped that Ned had found a healthier way to mourn.

 _Gosh, he had to stop thinking of himself as dead,_ Peter reminded himself. He'd see them all soon, hopefully.

"Not long now," Strange said to him, snapping him out of his own thoughts. "Unless you want to take a shortcut?"

The older man stopped suddenly. Reaching out, Strange began to roll his wrist in a circular motion. Sparks began to appear out of nowhere, dropping to the ground and bouncing on the tiles like a badly-set up firework on the Fourth of July. It was one of those weird portal thingies that he'd used in the battle against Thanos and in the meeting. It grew until both Peter and Strange could step through, and after the latter did, the former followed. 

Stepping out of the portal, Peter looked around in wonder. Stacks upon stacks of books lined the walls, piled ceiling-high. Weirdly shaped bookshelves were lined up behind each other in rows; single copies were suspended in the middle of interlocking hexagons, like a bee hive. 

Wooden desks were placed in weird spots, almost as if the sorcerers that had used them had summoned them instead of just walking over to one. Open laptops and mobile phones cast artificial light on some of the darker places, but most of the light came from the large glass roofs that were dotted around the room.

"This way," Strange said, and strode towards the far wall.

As they speed-walked, the bookcases shot in the opposite direction, disappearing into small openings in the closest wall to them. Dust jumped in the air as they squeaked across the tile floor. Thankfully, though, there were no scratch marks. Peter hadn't spent a long time around sorcerers, but he _had_ watched the entirety of _Shadowhunters_. Even though he was fictional, Magnus Bane didn't like his things being messed with. Peter would bet that Strange didn't either.

On a stand, a necklace identical to the one that the sorcerer had tucked in his shirt glinted softly in the overhead sunlight. It was brass-coloured and slightly tarnished, but it looked like it could take a couple more battles yet. Peter watched with bated breath as Strange lifted it off the stand with both hands and carefully transferred it over to a desk. He leant over his shoulder as the sorcerer opened it with a hand gesture, twisting the wreaths of brass away like a dial.

The Time Stone shone brightly from inside the mystical item, the green light refracting and deflecting off the shiny desk. It didn't pulse or disappear — it just sat there. Peter watched for a second, checking for any change, and when none happened he leant in further. Maybe something else needed to happen first.

Strange turned to him and Peter jumped back a little. "Do you have a little hammer or fork in your suit or something I could use to get the Stone out of the Eye?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? Dude, my suit's made of spandex. I _wish_ I had proper pockets instead of these weird vacuum-packed ones. I can barely fit my phone in here most of the time."

"So Stark hasn't yet mastered the art of making things bigger on the inside," Strange mused. "Reassuring to know. No worries, I'll just summon one."

As the teenager wondered how to unpack _that_ statement, the sorcerer muttered a short spell and opened his palm. Peter watched as a swirl of grey and black appeared out of thin air and formed the shape of a hammer over it. Strange grasped it, flipped it so the side to get nails out of it was facing the stone, and brought it forward. He yanked down.

The hammer flew out of his hands and neatly embedded itself into a nearby wall with a ca- _thunk._

"Oh, jeez," Peter said, reacting just a second too late. "Uh, was that supposed to happen?"

"No, of course not," Strange answered snappishly. "There appears to be some kind of enchantment on the amulet." He rubbed his temples unhappily, then looked back up. "Sorry. Wong's been having me work through my… communication issues. It's been tough without him reminding me what not to say."

"It's okay," Peter reassured him. In truth, he knew quite a few people who would be better off with Wong looking after them. Whoever Wong was. "Do you need me to help?"

Strange's face contorted in thought. "Actually, there is something. You see those bookcases behind me?"

" _Saw_ them, you mean?" said Peter. "They all disappeared into their… cubbyholes."

"Oh?" He turned in his seat and sighed, snapping his fingers. A single shelf came whooshing back into its spot, swaying back and forth with the sudden motion. "There you go. There's a book over there that might have the answers."

 _Okay._ Peter walked back over to the honeycomb-shaped bookshelf. As he got closer, he realised each book was chained tightly to the pipe that the case was made out of. "Which one is it?" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Third one from the left, top row," Strange yelled back.

"It's locked away!"

Another snap of the fingers came before the padlock fell to the floor between Peter's feet and the book fell down. Panicking, the teenager shot a web at the tome and yanked it towards his hands before it suffered the same fate as the lock. Looking up as the adrenaline wore away, Peter saw the chain slink away and wrap itself around the edges of the hexagon. Cool.

"So, Wong?" he asked as he put it down in front of Strange. Peter leant back in the chair he'd stolen from behind another desk. "Who's he?"

"Wong," Strange replied, flicking through the pages of the book, "is the best friend I’ve ever had, though I wouldn’t tell him that to his face. He's the other sorcerer you met in New York."

"Oh, the serious guy?"

"He'd probably love that you called him that," Strange remarked, "but yes. We, uh, didn't get along in the beginning — in fact, this is the place we first met — but now we protect the New York Sanctum together. He's there for me. I'm there for him. And I’ll continue to be once I’m not dead."

"I get that," Peter said. "I'm doing this for my best friends too. Ned and MJ and my Aunt May. Ned's been my best friend since freshman year, and MJ's — well, MJ's _MJ_. And May's the only family I've got left. I have to be there."

Strange looked up from his book. "What about Stark?"

"Mr. Stark was my hero when I was younger, definitely," he answered, "and I do respect him a lot. But I kind of prefer being a smaller hero, y'know, and he's the most famous kind you can be." Peter sighed. "I'm really grateful for the help he gave me and the fact I can call on him for help, whenever, and I _am_ really looking forward to seeing him when I get back. But I'm doing this for the people I see _every day_. If he were in my position, I just know he'd be thinking the same way."

Strange nodded silently. He looked down at the page his finger was resting on and blinked. "No rest for the wicked," he commented. "Found the right incantation. Get back, Spider-Man."

Peter obliged, clearing the table. He so didn't want to get spliced or whatever. Spiders were easily swatted.

Strange rose from his chair and extended a hand towards the volatile necklace. 

" _Enots emit eht eerf,"_ he chanted, orange rings forming around his wrists like a Mandala.

An awful screeching noise, like nails on a chalkboard, echoed around the room. Peter cupped his hands around his ears and resisted the urge to back up against the wall. The separate parts of the amulet buckled, straightened and unfolded, creating a golden sunburst-like arrangement as the bands slapped against the table in all directions. The Time Stone launched itself into the air and floated on the wind.

The screeching stopped as the Stone just hung there, bobbing up and down. He walked towards it cautiously. Still no pulsing. It was like it had run out of charge.

"There's something wrong," Peter said, concerned. "What —"

"Oh, I'm _such_ an _idiot_ ," Strange realised. He facepalmed. "I read about this when I first began to use the Eye. Agamotto — first Sorcerer Supreme, Father of the Mystic Arts — created the Eye in order to use the Time Stone without repercussions to his body and mind. To ensure this, he enchanted the ever-loving crap out of the gem so it couldn't be used when it wasn't in the Eye." He sighed. "And I just _destroyed_ the Eye. Damn it."

Peter frowned. "No, you didn't."

"Didn't you just see what I did?" Strange pointed at the twisty sculpture he had managed to make on the desk. "It's a pretzel. And now I can't reverse it because I can't use the _Time Stone!"_

The teenage vigilante rolled his eyes. " _No,_ you _didn't_ ," Peter repeated. "You've got another one under your shirt."

A beat, and then —

"Oh," Strange said, subdued, and fished the Eye that was recreated by Lady Death out. "Right." 

The Mandala rings formed at his fingertips this time as Strange chanted a different spell and the Stone fell into the open Eye's 'iris'. Immediately, it lit up and began pulsing, before it disappeared. 

_Five down, one to go,_ he thought. Peter didn't think he could take any more trips. He was barely keeping awake as it was.

When the headache came, he even didn't stop to wonder where he was going next.


	13. Senary

For the 'nth time that day, Peter praised whatever deity it was that cured headaches as his own eased itself away. It wasn't a painless cure like it had been earlier — no, this time it felt like he was being dragged down a particularly rough street — but he was grateful all the same. There was, weirdly, a pressure building up around his arm, squeezing it; it was like someone had hooked him up to one of those blood pressure machines with a cuff and set the settings to trash compactor. 

Blearily, his eyes flickered open. Peter's vision smeared across in stripes of purple and white as he realised he was being dragged by something. He glanced up to his arm in panic. 

A metal hand, painted black and gold (with some patches of repair poking through) was curled around his forearm, whilst the rest of Peter's arm was slung over the owner of the metal hand's shoulders. Peter coughed weakly and the man rearranged his position, propping Peter up as he walked.

"…Bucky?" he wheezed.

The man grunted. "Just a little longer, kid. You gave us both a scare."

Peter nodded like a rag-doll as he let himself be helped along the road. In fact, it was barely a road — a craggy line of rocks and pools of sand were all that they were travelling down. On either side of them there was a huge drop that threatened to grow larger; every step Bucky took caused crumbling. Peter swallowed as he willed himself to look ahead instead of down. A spectacular purple and pink sky loomed overhead. There was no sun to be seen, but everything was still lit, albeit dimly.

As they continued on, Peter caught the silhouette of a figure watching them from the top of a long flight of stairs. He watched, starstruck, as large wings unfurled from the figure's back.

Sam.

"Glad to see it's a friendly face instead of some asshole," he said when they reached the top, "even if that face _is_ covered with a mask. Hey, bud."

"I'm not the one wearing goggles," retorted Peter. He slumped down onto a large rock and pulled off his mask. He ran his hands over his hair, trying to smooth it down from the static that was sticking it up. One look at Bucky's face told him he wasn't doing any good. "What do you mean, 'glad it wasn't some asshole'?"

"Sam and I woke up here alone," Bucky explained. He coughed. "And then a loud-ass bang happened and we decided we should check it out. Y'know, in case it was a bad guy."

"Gee, thanks."

"Not saying you're not a bad guy. You've got your whole future ahead of you, kid."

"Gee, _thanks_." Peter gave up on flattening down his hair and began to stand up, waving off Sam's bracing arm. "So, where are we?"

"Nowhere on Earth," Bucky replied almost immediately. He shrugged when Peter looked at him. "I've been looking up at the same stars for the last seventy-odd years. I think I would know when we were seeing new ones. You don't seem very surprised by this, kid."

Peter grimaced. "I've had a really weird day," he surmised. "Alien planet doesn't even make the list."

Sam raised his eyebrows and turned slightly. Suddenly, he whistled. "Would you look at that drop?"

The teenager walked up next to him and looked down. Jeez. A veritable Sarlacc Pit had opened up underneath them, the walls lined with rock. The bottom was entirely covered in darkness. Spiralling down the sides of the hole was a line of dull metal plates that seemed to be melded onto the dirt. 

In front of the pit, two large boot prints were etched in the dirt like fossils, like someone had been stood there for a very long time. A moleskin notebook lay open on the floor. Peter picked it up and squinted.

 _If only Gwen was here,_ he thought. "Does anyone here read German?"

Sam looked at Bucky. The super soldier rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone assume I know every language?" he groused, and picked it up. Peter shrugged as he perused the page and froze.

"Bucky?"

The man swallowed. "Just recognised the handwriting, that's all. _Bastard_ ," added Bucky tersely, without elaborating. His fingers shook a tiny amount as he followed the words along. "Says here we have to sacrifice something to get the Stone. Someone."

"You mean, like…" Peter tried to ignore the lump in his throat. "…One of us has to die? _Again?"_

"I guess so, in normal circumstances. But with us…" Bucky trailed off. "Death said she was offering us protection from dying. Maybe if we do this, we can bounce back."

 _That seems like a really big 'maybe'_ , Peter thought. He grimaced and adjusted his web shooters. Pulling his mask back on, Peter blinked as the familiar interface booted up and began to flit across his vision. According to his suit's technology, the pit looked around 65 feet deep; more than enough to squash a spider.

"I'll do it," he said aloud, mind made up. Out of the three of them there, Peter was the only one that didn't have a massive world to protect.

Sam looked at him like he had just declared his intention to move to Latveria. "No. Are you crazy? No. _No."_

"It makes sense —"

"Hell no, it doesn't," the ex-airman scoffed. "Buddy, how on Earth is there going to be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man when there's no Spider-Man?"

"Sam's right," Bucky agreed. He frowned. "You should really stop volunteering to endanger yourself for any mission that comes up, kid. First the airport, then that spaceship thing with Strange, now this? You're seven. Watch some television instead."

"Seven- _teen,"_ Peter stressed, temporarily forgetting his martyrdom. "And the only TV I've had access to in the last few days was in the pocket dimension where there were no satellites. Which no-one helped me to fix in vain, by the way," he added, looking at the two pointedly.

They ignored him. "So I guess that leaves it up to me," Bucky murmured, grasping his metal arm. "I thought I'd go out in a blaze of glory with my sweetheart by my side." He looked at Sam. "Half true, at least."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're both crazy," he declared, sounding very tired. He crossed his arms and stared Bucky and Peter down, then put his hands up when he realised neither of their faces were going to change from being blank. "How are either of you going to get back up, at least?"

"Climb," Bucky replied easily just as Peter said "web… shooters," and then realised that none of his options had sixty-five feet long webbing as a feature and cringed as he got Sam's point. The veteran then scrunched up his nose.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said, "but I have _wings._ I can fly back up. I should be the one to go," he finished smugly.

" _No,"_ Bucky said vehemently. "You can’t. You — I can’t be alone. Not again."

Sam shook his head. "You won't be, if you're right," he assured him. He touched his metal arm fondly. Bucky shivered. Peter felt distinctly like he'd been shut out of the conversation.

Bucky hummed softly. "I can't actually convince you not to do this, can I?"

"Nope. Sorry," Sam offered, sounding not sorry at all.

"Let's hope I'm right, then." The super soldier frowned as Sam moved past them, freeing his wings from behind his back. Then the other man paused, head turning and looking back at Bucky. He tapped at the touchscreen on his arm. A metal red triangle freed itself from a compartment in the top of his wings and unfolded into a vague bird shape, flying to the duo's side. 

"Take care of Redwing for me," he requested, before turning around fully and spreading his arms wide. Sam's wings rose higher and higher and unfurled. Like he was doing a trust fall, Sam stood ramrod straight before rocking back.

Then he was gone.

Peter's heart was in his mouth as he realised his senses weren't picking up Sam at all. It was almost as if the void that he'd seen at the bottom of the pit had swallowed him whole. It made him feel uneasy. 

Looking to his left, he could see that Bucky wasn't doing too good either. He'd gone real pale; his knuckles and face had whitened with tension and his nostrils were flaring like crazy. A couple of seconds passed. Bucky started to sink down on the floor next to Redwing. His hand hovered over where what would have been the drone's plumage if it were an actual bird.

The teenager shuffled from one foot to the other, unsure of what to say. "Are you okay, dude?"

"No," Bucky replied shortly. Peter put up his hands in a slight surrender before backing off.

Of course, that was the moment the yellow light in Redwing's eyes decided to shut down.

Instantly, the older man freaked and leapt forward, trying to pry off the machinery that covered Redwing's wiring. In a panic, Peter webbed his hand to the drone's head, sealing it shut.

"Woah, what the heck, dude!" he exclaimed. "Sam asks you to take care of his drone and the first thing you do is rip it open?"

Bucky shook his head, looking slightly wild. "You don't understand," he insisted. "This thing only works when Sam's working. He hasn't shut it off himself, so…"

"…So you think Sam's stopped working." Peter paled. "Permanently?"

"I don't know, Peter. I just can't be alone again," the super soldier repeated. 

Gulping, Peter nodded numbly.

Bucky ran his fingers through his long hair, then ripped his not-free metal hand from Redwing's head. With a grunt, he stood shakily and staggered over to the edge of the cliff. He dropped to his knees again and took in a ragged breath, just shy of the long drop.

"Sam!" He yelled into the abyss. _"Sam!"_

There was no response at all.

Stumbling slightly, Peter made his way over to Bucky. He grimaced at the sharp drop that was nearly beneath them and placed what he hoped was a comforting arm over his shoulders. Peter could feel the older man shaking underneath his grasp and screwed his eyes shut. _Come on, Falcon._

With his sense of sight self-compromised, Peter's other senses provided a handy-dandy map of his surroundings. The vibrations thrumming through the centre of the alien planet ran through his entire body; from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair Peter felt every moving thing running through himself, like he was some kind of spider-themed trip wire. As the echoes from Bucky's shouts spiralled down the pit, the image in Peter's head sharpened.

This awesome fact meant Peter felt the whirring-up of Sam's machinery a couple of seconds before he heard Bucky gasp in shock.

Opening his eyes, the teenager fell back onto his elbows as Sam flew back up in front of them. The engines roared and spluttered as he executed a perfect aileron roll ( _not_ a barrel roll, Mr. Fox McCloud) before landing on his feet. Laughing in shock, Bucky scrambled to his feet before running over. Peter followed behind at a safe distance.

Sam removed his goggles and grinned at his friend, looking slightly windswept. His left eye was _busted_. His wings groaned in protest as Sam straightened his back. Red rust had travelled up one side, like sand that had eroded it over a long time. Sam was incredibly lucky that he had managed to get back up, Peter thought.

"What, no hello hug?" he joked. Bucky huffed a relieved laugh and punched him lightly on the arm. Dried blood and mud caked the side of it and, as Bucky removed his lingering hand, it was transferred to it. Underneath was completely unbroken skin. Peter couldn't actually see where he was injured.

"Fuck a hello hug," the other man decided roughly. 

Moving forward, Bucky got deeply into Sam's personal space and placed his non-cyborg hand behind his head. Before Sam could react, Bucky slammed his lips onto his. He melted into it, wrapping his arms around the super soldier. Peter looked away at a particularly interesting rock formation to give them some privacy. So _that_ was what he had been missing. Well, he wasn't an honour roll student for nothing, right?

A hiss and groan sounded from somewhere to Peter's stage left. "Oh, fuck, right, the kid," Sam realised, and whistled. "Buddy!"

Peter looked up and shrugged at them both. "I don't mind, guys," he said. "Seriously. Just, like, you could have told me, you know?" Suddenly realising something, he frowned. "Wait. So Bucky _wasn't_ sleeping on the sofa?"

Bucky turned and shook his head. "Oh, no, I was. I don't really like beds. Too… soft." He nodded. "Spend fifty years in a cryo-chamber and you wake up not being used to mattresses. C'est la fucking vie." 

"Huh." A beat passed and Peter coughed. "Y'know, usually, there's a floaty weird stone right now and I bag it and then I get a headache. None of that has happened yet."

Sam scoffed and pointed to the pit. "I am so not doing that again, bud." 

Either not listening or not liking where the conversation was going, Bucky bit his lip. "I thought you'd died, Sam."

Sam pulled a face. "I think I did," he reflected. "I mean, look at me. I look like I dug myself out of Hell. I think I died, Bucky. I just can't remember it."

"'Quicker and easier than falling asleep', right?" Peter asked. He crossed his arms, feeling slightly awkward.

Bucky gave him the stink eye. "Did you just quote Harry Potter at me?"

Before he could answer, Peter's attention was dragged away from the couple and towards a menacing thundering noise that sent rumbles running through his spider-senses' trip wire analogy. A familiar grey fog had risen up from the middle of the pit, curling over the sides and converging in front of it. Goosebumps charged up and down his arms as he watched the cloaked figure of Lady Death reappear from the depths of the smoke. Again, she drew back her purple hood and smiled sadly.

"Peter Parker. Sam Wilson. James Barnes." She hummed. "You have made the ultimate sacrifice and have completed your collection of the Infinity Stones. Congratulations."

Peter cleared his throat. "Uh, sorry, ma'am, but we haven’t actually got —"

Lady Death stalked over to where Redwing had landed, her purple cape billowing out behind her. Like a viper, she reached out and snatched away the remnants of Peter's web; the drone's beak dropped downwards and out fell a yellow gem. It was the same colour as the sky in the afterlife. Peter's heart stuttered out a staccato beat. The Soul Stone.

The last Infinity Stone.

Deftly, Death caught it with a gloved hand. She held it out to Peter as he walked forward towards her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam and Bucky look at each other, confused. He ignored it and watched as Death let go of the Stone, the gem staying where it was in mid-air. It pulsed a familiar rhythm before disappearing. Protectively, Peter placed a hand on his orange man-purse. The power of the universe was at his side — literally.

Somehow, he imagined this moment to be more empowering. Trumpets or something sounding out from behind him. Instead, Peter just felt a sense of being anchored. He knew what he had to do. Looking up at the Lady, he nodded. Her face flickered to a skeletal appearance as she nodded back.

Death put a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the pit. Peter gulped as he looked down, then gave a cursory glance toward Sam and Bucky. 

Bucky squeezed Sam and smiled sadly at him. "Bye, kid."

Though they couldn't see his face under the mask, Peter gave a small grin back.

Then he jumped and went tumbling.

Down.

Down.

_Down._


	14. Infinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The finale.

Somewhere along the Milky Way, there once was a planet that was bathed in grasses of red and purple. The sunsets were longer than the sunrises, and the main export was farming — cattle, mostly. There were no aliens living there year-round; the planet used to have people, but they all left when they realised that the cattle they were farming were growing taller than they ever could dream to be. Too many men being crushed underfoot, apparently. Under hoof?

Well, that's what Peter imagined had happened when the darkness around him gave way to a sunset. It wasn't even a good sunset. He'd seen better on the Visit Wakanda Twitter page. Much better, actually. One of the pictures they'd shared was actually one of the backgrounds on his phone. His lock screen was himself and MJ. 

Well, three pixels of his hair and MJ. It had been the only picture she'd allowed him to keep.

" _I'm a lasting impression already, weirdo,"_ she'd said when he'd protested. Peter didn’t disagree. 

As he hurtled toward a particularly bright patch of purple grass, the teenager wondered exactly where the big bad was. Maybe he hadn't seen him coming down from the sky. Maybe he was heating up some microwave popcorn and turned exactly at the moment Peter had entered the atmosphere to get it out.

 _Splat._ Groaning, he got up onto his muddy elbows — had it been raining? — and rubbed his face on his shoulder, a purple reed that had somehow attached itself to it staying stubbornly there. He probably looked like roadkill. 

Peter reached to his side. The almighty man-purse was still there. Good. 

Standing, the teenager looked around him. Waist-high crops scratched at his suit as he twisted. Half of them looked dead. The ground was mostly flat and packed tightly together, feeling almost like the asphalt of Queens under his feet. A couple of yards away a cabin had been built from good wood and slate, propped up on a deck. In the distance, a scarecrow made up of a single cross and a set of familiar armour towered over the crops. There were no crows to be seen.

Peter weaved his way through the grasses and crops. With every step, he grew closer to the cabin. He could now see the colossal figure sitting on the deck. Light on his feet, he climbed the wooden stairs, keeping a cautious hand on the guard rail. Peter could imagine some recluse living here, off the grid, only venturing out to buy important stuff like blu-tack or shoe polish. Those were grown adult hermit things.

He cleared his throat and waited with held breath.

The man didn't hear him.

Exasperated, Peter rolled his eyes. "Karen," he whispered, "launch interrogation mode."

A green tick mark flickered across his vision and Peter nodded and cleared his throat again, this time the noise coming out of the suit's speakers deeper, louder and more distorted. The giant jumped, the deck protesting beneath him, and scrambled to his feet. His eyes burned with unbridled fury, face imposing.

" _You,"_ Thanos accused, "are supposed to be dead."

Feeling an unearned sense of bravado rushing through his veins, Peter pretended to look shocked. "Who, me?" He looked at his hands in amazement. "I'm pretty sure I'm alive, here. Why, what's up, dude?"

Thanos's nostrils flared. Then his mouth contorted into a sick smile. "Easily rectified," he said, leaning down. Ripping up one of the planks of wood that made up the deck, the Titan reached down and picked up a golden glove from where he'd presumably stashed it in the hole. Peter's own universe's Infinity Stones shone from each knuckle of it and the back of the hand. Thanos slipped it back onto his left hand and curled his fingers into a fist, admiring the gauntlet from all angles.

Peter gulped, his own hand straying towards the Counter-Earth Infinity Stones, safe in the plastic satchel. There was no telling what would happen now.

Thanos met his eyes easily. He uncurled his thumb, his index finger and his middle finger from the fist he'd made. Smirking, he held his hand up and snapped them.

Just as Peter thought he was about to become Spider-Dust 2.0., a red light shone out from his side and bathed them both, diffused by the orange tint of the polypropylene bag. The Reality Stone. _So_ this _was what Death meant by fighting fire with fire_ , the teenager thought. _Cool._

The Titan's eyebrow ridge furrowed. He didn't actually have eyebrows, Peter realised, but it was about where they would be if he did. He snapped his fingers again.

Peter crossed his arms and looked at an imaginary watch, tapping his foot.

Indignantly, Thanos started to snap in quick succession. "Why —"

"—You know, for a genocidal tyrant, you sure have way too little tricks up your sleeve," commented Peter. He spread out his hands. "Like, dude. I might actually feel sorry when I'm curb stomping you. Come on." 

Quickly, as Thanos began to lunge forward, Peter shot a web at his forehead and yanked. Stumbling, the alien ripped it off in anger — only to see Peter scaling up the wall of the cabin. He grabbed him by the leg with his non-gloved hand and pulled him up until Thanos's face met Peter's upside-down one. His accordion chin creased in a smug smile.

An loud electrical hum echoed in Peter's ears. All of a sudden, Thanos cried out and dropped him, massaging his hand. Peter scrambled to his feet.

" _Instant Kill Mode deactivated,"_ Karen announced. Peter frowned. _Instant Kill Mode was just electrocution?_ Then he thought about Mr. Stark's weird sense of humour and realised it made sense. Maybe it was time to re-name that feature.

Taking a running jump, Peter fired a web at Thanos's torso. He wrapped it around him, landing on the front wall of the cabin and running across it, still releasing the web. He pushed himself back off the wall and fully let go of the adhesive, looking at Thanos struggling in the body-wrap. Peter grinned and launched himself into the air at an angle by shooting webbing at the floor. He kicked Thanos in the head, causing him to fall completely off the deck.

In horror, the teenager watched as the green stone on Thanos's gauntlet glinted brighter than the others. Mandalas — just like the ones Strange used — formed around his body and turned like a clock counting seconds. The web fluid disappeared around him as, impossibly, the school containers Peter had used to store the fluid appeared at Thanos's feet. He inspected one.

Then the canisters disappeared from the Titan's very hands. Confused, Peter felt an ice-cold surface touching his own fingerprints. He lifted up his hand as blue light dimmed from the purse. Peter flipped over the container that had apparently been teleported to him and fast-pitched it at Thanos's head. He cried out, clutched his skull and sunk back onto the ground.

"I've had a long day," Peter started, jumping into the grasses himself, "so understand me when I say I’m not playing around." 

He approached Thanos and tilted his head. 

"Now say you're sorry." 

_Okay, maybe not one of his best lines._

Thanos looked at him warily. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "I performed a service to the universe!"

"Some service," the teenager commented. "Wiping out half of it? That'll get you some good karma for sure."

"You don't understand, _stupid boy_ ," he spat. "Less consumers means more to share around. I thought they taught you that in your _schools."_

Peter shrugged. "Something like that," he said, "except you didn't just wipe out all that you considered to be 'intelligent life'. You wiped out _everything._ All of the plant life, all of the wildlife — Heck, you've got to have noticed that your percentage yield for your crops is low! And why are you farming anyway? Shouldn't there be enough food to go around now, according to you?"

"You are a terrible soldier," Thanos said, ignoring him. "Fighting a war that you shouldn't be here to fight. I will _not_ believe the word of those with a grudge against me, even if they are dead."

"Your loss," said Peter. "And, for everything you've just said, you're wrong. Like, entirely. Three things. I'm not a 'terrible soldier' because I’m not a soldier at all and I don't want to be one. I'm a teenage vigilante that misses the family you ripped away from me and the city — the _world_ — you turned half to dust. So yeah, I should be fighting this war."

Thanos looked at him properly for the first time. "What's the third thing?"

"The third thing," Peter counted off of his fingers, "is that _I'm not freaking dead_."

With a _thwip_ , he pulled down the heavy armour-wearing wooden scarecrow onto the tyrant, jumping neatly out of the way as it came crashing onto the ground. Peter pulled open the press-stud that sealed the purse and the Infinity Stones that he'd gathered rose up into the air, forming a hexagon-shaped ring around the distracted alien. 

Electricity surged between the jewels forming a forcefield around Thanos, who rose and roared at the sight. He attempted to punch it with the gauntlet. But like two magnets that were pushing against each other, there was no effect.

"Y'see, there's something you didn't factor in when you wiped out half the universe. A wise man once told me that with great power comes great responsibility. And since you decided that with the power of the Infinity Stones you were going to commit mass genocide and then live on a farm for the rest of your life I think you've shown that you don't understand that at all."

Thanos snarled, enraged. "I _sacrificed_ my favourite _daughter_ for this!" 

"Weirdly, that doesn't sound responsible at all," Peter commented. "And who admits they have a favourite child? Anyway. Since I don't think you can learn that concept of responsibility in the short amount of time that you have left, I'm just gonna —"

The Titan laughed, interrupting him. "You think you can kill me? I assure you you are outmatched."

He frowned. "Okay, which one of us has a energy field around us? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? And _no_ , of course I'm not going to kill you, oh my gosh. I'm not gonna sink to your level."

"Then —"

"I might not be the Sorcerer Supreme, but I'm a quick learner," Peter said. "I didn't get all these Infinity Stones by myself and I'm glad. Because, interestingly, my friend who is actually the Sorcerer Supreme told me a story about how he defeated some guy named — well, I've forgotten his name, it was something like Dorkmango or whatever. You wanna know how he did it?" 

The green and blue Infinity Stones freed themselves from the ring around Thanos, the gems on either side of them connecting to each other in a square. They hung in the air, before twisting into themselves and forming a large portal. On the other side, what looked like a kaleidoscope twisted and turned in the sky. The terrain was barren and cold.

Peter leaned in confidentially. "Trapped him in a time loop for a couple hundred years while he negotiated with him. Now, you see, as a growing _stupid boy,_ I'm rash, hormonal and impulsive. At least that's what WebMD tells me. So I'm gonna skip the me-going-into-the-portal-with-you part and also the letting-you-leave-the-time-loop part. Sucks, right?"

"You don't know what you're doing," Thanos accused, as he was forced by the field to move over to the edge of the portal. "You're making a powerful enemy."

"Good. I wouldn't want you as a friend." Peter crossed over to him. "You know what?"

 _"What?"_ He ground out.

Peter shook his head. "This is for New York, _jerk_."

The Infinity Stones keeping Thanos in place dropped to the ground, colour dulled. In the confusion Peter grabbed Thanos’s glove with both hands. With his feet, he pushed hard, knocking Thanos back into the portal. He threw the Gauntlet to the grasses and waved as Thanos got to his feet on the other side of what Peter could assume was the Dark Dimension. Just as he was just a few inches away, the portal closed with a deafening crack. 

The Space and Time Stones fell to the mud, digging themselves into the soil.

All of the confidence he'd earned drained out of Peter. Exhausted, he punched an arm into the air in celebration before sinking to the mud himself. Around him, Peter watched as the dead crops perked up and turned towards the sun, finally setting in the West. The clouds overhead broke open; rain splattered onto the farm and Peter. 

He didn't care. His face had become wet anyway.

They'd won.

Peter closed his eyes and welcomed the migraine as it washed over his head.

He could feel the ground shift and tilt underneath him, becoming smoother and less wet. Gone were the far off smells of rich incense from Asgard, the wet grass from the farm and the wild garlic of the afterlife. They had burned into his brain, probably, but what was here and now was the smell of his Aunt's cooking. Peter lingered for a while on it, basking in the feeling of _home_. He was going home.

Until he heard a hoarse scream sound out from behind him. Hurriedly, Peter turned around and leapt to his feet, opening his eyes and putting up his hands in surrender. May had her mace out and pointed towards him.

He was in their apartment, rain slamming down on the windows. The TV was on behind him, turned to a news channel. May was standing in one of the doorways, shaking slightly.

"Aunt May, it's me," Peter tried. He moved towards her cautiously, pulling off his mask. "It's all okay."

May flinched as she saw his face. "Prove it. _Prove_ it, hon."

"When the S.H.I.E.L.D. files were leaked, you and I spent, like, twelve nights in a row going through them all." 

He gulped, seeing that she was still unconvinced. 

"Uncle Ben said we were acting like we were extras in _The Matrix._ And then I said, 'I've never seen _The Matrix_.' And then we watched all three movies over a weekend. You said that you'd never watch a movie with us again because all we did was talk —"

Aunt May wavered, then lowered her mace. "I know the rest, honey," she assured him, voice breaking on the endearment. "It's really you, isn't it, Peter?" 

Peter nodded, sniffling as she raised her free hand to her face and stifled a sob. She moved forward slowly, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders and began to rub circles into his back. He hid his face in the crook of her neck. Together, they cried in relief from seeing each other again.

After a few seconds, they broke apart and May looked down at her now-mud soaked dress though her fogged up glasses. "Don't we look a picture," she said, then laughed. "Oh, Pete, you're soaked. And you need to clean up that bloody nose. I'll call that Claire I talked to the last time you came home like this." May sobered. "How are you doing?"

Peter reached up to his face self-consciously. "Alright, I think. You?" he asked, then added, "Anyway, this is dirt from an alien planet. Very in right now."

"I think I'm coping. Yeah." May frowned. "Do I want to ask?"

Peter flopped down onto the sofa. "It's been a heck of a past few days," he surmised. May nodded, then steadied herself and blinked hard. Peter cocked his head, curious.

"Just making sure I wasn't making this up," she explained, before ducking out of the room to get the phone. 

_Maybe I should do that,_ Peter thought.

Instead, he just kicked back and took in the breaking news that the missing half of the population had suddenly reappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This chapter's working title was _In Which Thanos Gets His Ass Kicked_.
> 
> Next up: The epilogue. Thank you for coming along with me on this journey, and I hope you enjoyed this fic!


	15. Epilogue

Steadying himself, Peter knocked on the bedroom door in the Avengers Compound. He leant on it slightly, increasing his weight when the person inside gave the go-ahead to enter. Unfortunately for him, though, he miscalculated and fell through, landing on his side. He groaned and allowed himself to be pulled up by a red-gloved hand.

Wanda Maximoff, freshly resurrected, looked at him with sad eyes. "I do not want to take part in any team-building exercises. Please tell Stark to stop sending up interns."

Peter frowned. "I will, but I'm not an intern. Well, I used to be, but — never mind. I'm here for a different reason. Can I —?" He gestured towards a seat. She waved at him, sitting down on her bed. Peter sat down next to her, swinging around his backpack to his front and rifling through it.

Victoriously, he retrieved the plastic belt bag from the shadowy depths. It was now empty of all Infinity Stones. Peter reached into it and retrieved the one thing that was left in it. Unfolding the photograph, he passed it to Wanda.

She gasped, running her hands over the faces in it carefully. "How did you get this? Where?"

"Let's just say I found it stuck in the middle of somewhere no-one would miss it being gone," Peter replied, nodding. "The real story stays between me and my therapist."

Wanda's eyes shone with emotion. "Thank you, uh…"

"Peter," he supplied, smiling gently. "And no problem. I figured you could use it."

She bit her lip. "You know, this was the only photograph I had of my family all together during the experiments. Myself, my brother, my father and mother." Wanda huffed. "I used to look at it and plan my revenge on Stark. I had to leave it behind when Ultron came."

Peter nodded, then stood up. "You know, it might not be a team-building exercise, but I’ve found hiking to be kind of fun. You should ask Bucky. He's got some equipment somewhere." He walked over to the door and stopped, looking back at her. "It's going to be okay, you know?"

"How do you know?" Wanda asked.

Peter grinned. "Everything turns out okay in the end," he said. "Don't worry about it. Life's too short. I can attest to that."

Wanda snorted, the _so can I_ left unsaid. "Nice to meet you, Peter," she said, propping the photo up against a picture of herself and The Vision. "Maybe we can… hang out sometime."

"Sounds good," Peter said. He shut the door behind him, waving to Sam and Bucky as he walked across the compound lobby. He neatly stepped over the engine parts strewn along the corridor. _Mr. Stark, Mr. Rocket and Groot must had left them there whilst trying to fix up the Guardians' ship,_ he realised.

Taking one last look at the inside, Peter shook his head. He pushed up his shirt sleeve, activating a web shooter, and shot one at the highest point of the building. Taking a run up, Peter began to swing throughout the exterior of the building, doing loops and rolls. He laughed, pure joy rushing through his veins.

Life was good, Peter decided.

* * *

 

 

_My days among the Dead are past;_

_Around me I behold,  
_

_Where'er these casual eyes are cast,  
_

_The mighty minds of old;  
_

_My never-failing friends are they,  
_

_With whom I converse day by day._

 

_With them I take delight in weal,  
_

_And seek relief in woe;  
_

_And while I understand and feel  
_

_How much to them I owe,  
_

_My cheeks have often been bedew'd  
_

_With tears of thoughtful gratitude.  
_

_My thoughts are with the Dead, with them  
_

_I live in long-past years,  
_

_Their virtues love, their faults condemn,  
_

_Partake their hopes and fears,  
_

_And from their lessons seek and find  
_

_Instruction with an humble mind.  
_

_My hopes are with the Dead, anon  
_

_My place with them will be,  
_

_And I with them shall travel on  
_

_Through all Futurity;  
_

_Yet leaving here a name, I trust,  
_

_That will not perish in the dust_.

\- Robert Southey

_([in]fin.[ity])_


End file.
